tragedy which might at that very hour be taking place in my house; I heard in fancy the cries and laments of my wife, of my sons, of my father and mother in the stress of that cruel moment. I imagined these tender little beings confided for the journey to the care of a stranger, perhaps of a rough soldier. At one moment I thought they might be following me on the road to Civita Vecchia, at another that they were perhaps even now being hurried along the Via Flaminia, so as to meet me and my gaoler at Viterbo or some other point on the road to France.

Giovanni Patrizi's message was never delivered to his family. The little circle, anxious to know the result of the interview with General de Miollis, waited in vain for his return. At last it was decided to send to the Governor's residence to inquire for him, and the good Signor Collicola offered to act as messenger. He hastened to the Palazzo Doria only to be told that the Governor was at the theatre. At the theatre he learnt that the Governor had left, and so returned to Palazzo Doria. After trying to track him for some time, he was curtly informed that the Marchese Patrizi was "travelling." At once grasping the meaning of this information, he resolved to keep it to himself, for that night at least, and on his return to Palazzo Patrizi his depressed and mysterious

ON THE HIGH ROAD

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demeanour led the family to suppose that Giovanni had been taken to Sant' Angelo, a mistake which Collicola did not correct. That was bad enough, but the truth-that Giovanni was being spirited away to some unknown prison-was so much worse that his friend had not the heart to disclose it.

By some means, however, it became known in the house next morning, first to his parents, and then, through her mother-in-law, to Cunegonda. The blow was as terrible as it was unexpected, and it required all their fortitude to meet it in a manner worthy of their faith and race. The poor little boys, realising that they were the cause of the trouble, were terribly afflicted, but tried in their childish way to follow the example of their elders' patience and resignation.

The light buggy bumped through six hours with

It was a bitterly cold night. with its three horses rattled and the darkness for some five or out a halt, and the unfortunate prisoner, called from his supper to pay an evening visit, and quite unprovided with extra wraps, suffered horribly from the cold before the first halt was called at Monterone towards three o'clock in the morning. The place was but a tiny hamlet serving as a posting-station about half-way between Rome and Civita Vecchia. Here," says the Marchese, "I imagined that we

should change horses, but it turned out that the halt was intended merely to rest those we had. I alighted from the carriage, and we entered a room contiguous to the stable; here a roaring fire was burning, and nine or ten peasants were sleeping on the floor around it, their feet all turned to the flame. Others, who probably considered themselves too distinguished for such a position, were sleeping in bunks against the wall. The fire was most consoling, for I was chilled to the bone. Still imagining we should get fresh horses, I was somewhat surprised at the long halt we were making, and I began to fancy that we were waiting to permit my sons and their captors to rejoin us here. The thought, though it had caused me painful anxiety hitherto, now brought comfort; it would have been most sweet to have those dear little companions on my journey, however alarming the goal! Already I pictured their arrival at this dark den; their tears and their fears, and the joy with which I would take them into my arms to comfort and sustain them with all the authority of a father!"

Giovanni Patrizi, although the most sincere and warm-hearted of men, had a distinct sense of dramatic fitness, and in every circumstance he shows himself naively anxious to extract all the aroma possible from every situation. It is a characteristic of the Latin races which has drawn forth much adverse comment from Northerners, who are loud in asserting that it denotes shallowness of feeling.