With what anguish of spirit must Vivaldi and Fulvia have awaited him in that hour of dawn behind the convent!  What thoughts must have visited the girl’s mind as day broadened, the city woke, and peril pressed on them with every voice and eye!  And when at length they saw that he had failed them, which way did their hunted footsteps turn?  Perhaps they dared not go back to the friend who had taken them in for the night.  Perhaps even now they wandered through the streets, fearing arrest if they revealed themselves by venturing to engage a carriage, at every turn of his thoughts Odo was mocked by some vision of disaster; and an hour of perplexity yielded no happier expedient than that of repairing to the meeting-place behind the Umiliati.  It was a deserted lane with few passers; and after vainly questioning the blank wall of the convent and the gates of a sinister-looking alms-house that faced it, he retraced his steps to the inn.

He spent a day of futile research and bitter thoughts, now straying forth in the hope of meeting Vivaldi, now hastening back to the Three Crowns on the chance that some message might await him.  He dared not let his mind rest on what might have befallen his friends; yet the alternative of contemplating his own course was scarcely more endurable.  Nightfall brought the conviction that the Professor and Fulvia had passed beyond his reach.  It was clear that if they were still in Vercelli they did not mean to make their presence known to him, while in the event of their escape he was without means of tracing them farther.  He knew indeed that their destination was Milan, but, should they reach there safely, what hope was there of finding them in a city of strangers?  By a stroke of folly he had cut himself off from all communication with them, and his misery was enhanced by the discovery of his weakness.  He who had fed his fancy on high visions, cherishing in himself the latent patriot and hero, had been driven by a girl’s caprice to break the first law of manliness and honour!  The event had already justified her; and in a flash of self-contempt he saw himself as she no doubt beheld him—­the fribble preying like a summer insect on the slow growths of difficult years...

In bitterness of spirit he set out the next morning for Pianura.  A half-melancholy interest drew him back to the scene of his lonely childhood, and he had started early in order to push on that night to Pontesordo.  At Valsecca, the regular posting-station between Vercelli and Pianura, he sent Cantapresto forward to the capital, and in a stormy yellow twilight drove alone across the waste land that dipped to the marshes.  On his right the woods of the ducal chase hung black against the sky; and presently he saw ahead of him the old square keep, with a flight of swallows circling low about its walls.

In the muddy farm-yard a young man was belabouring a donkey laden with mulberry-shoots.  He stared for a moment at Odo’s approach and then sullenly returned to his task.