Odo was struck by the change which had transformed a heady and intemperate speaker into a model of philosophic calm.  The doctor, indeed, seemed far more concerned for the safety of his library and his cabinet of minerals than for his own.  “Happily,” said he, “I am not a man of family, and can therefore sacrifice my liberty with a clear conscience:  a fact I am the more thankful for when I recall the moral distress of our poor friend Vivaldi, when compelled to desert his post rather than be separated from his daughter.”

The name brought the colour to Odo’s brow, and with an embarrassed air he asked what news the doctor had of their friend.

“Alas,” said the other, “the last was of his death, which happened two years since in Pavia.  The Sardinian government had, as you probably know, confiscated his small property on his leaving the state, and I am told he died in great poverty, and in sore anxiety for his daughter’s future.”  He added that these events had taken place before his own departure from Turin, and that since then he had learned nothing of Fulvia’s fate, save that she was said to have made her home with an aunt who lived in a town of the Veneto.

Odo listened in silence.  The lapse of time, and the absence of any links of association, had dimmed the girl’s image in his breast; but at the mere sound of her name it lived again, and he felt her interwoven with his deepest fibres.  The picture of her father’s death and of her own need filled him with an ineffectual pity, and for a moment he thought of seeking her out; but the other could recall neither the name of the town she had removed to nor that of the relative who had given her a home.

To aid the good doctor was a simpler business.  The intervention of de Crucis and Odo’s own influence sufficed to effect his release, and on the payment of a heavy fine (in which Odo privately assisted him) he was reinstated in his chair.  The only promise exacted by the Holy Office was that he should in future avoid propounding his own views on questions already decided by Scripture, and to this he readily agreed, since, as he shrewdly remarked to Odo, his opinions were now well-known, and any who wished farther instruction had only to apply to him privately.

The old Duke having invited Odo to return to Monte Alloro with such treasures as he had collected for the ducal galleries, the young man resolved to visit Rome on his way to the North.  His acquaintance with de Crucis had grown into something like friendship since their joint effort in behalf of the imprisoned sage, and the abate preparing to set out about the same time, the two agreed to travel together.  The road leading from Naples to Rome was at that time one of the worst in Italy, and was besides so ill-provided with inns that there was no inducement to linger on the way.  De Crucis, however, succeeded in enlivening even this tedious journey.  He was a good linguist and a sound classical scholar, besides having, as