“Yes,” he said.  “You know they’ve been here long enough.  They want to see Rome.  Holy-week, you know.  No end of excitement.  Illumination of St. Peter’s, and all that sort of thing, you know.”

Dacres relapsed into sombre silence.  For more than half an hour he did not say a word.  Hawbury respected his mood, and watched him with something approaching to anxiety.

“Hawbury,” said he at last.

“Well, old man?”

“I’m going to Rome.”

“You—­to Rome!”

“Yes, me, to Rome.”

“Oh, nonsense!  See here, old boy.  You’d really better not, you know.  Break it up.  You can’t do any thing.”

“I’m going to Rome,” repeated Dacres, stolidly.  “I’ve made up my mind.”

“But, really,” remonstrated Hawbury.  “See here now, my dear fellow; look here, you know.  By Jove! you don’t consider, really.”

“Oh yes, I do.  I know every thing; I consider every thing.”

“But what good will it do?”

“It won’t do any good; but it may prevent some evil.”

“Nothing but evil can ever come of it.”

“Oh, no evil need necessarily come of it.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Hawbury, who began to be excited.  “Really, my dear fellow, you don’t think.  You see you can’t gain any thing.  She’s surrounded by friends, you know.  She never can be yours, you know.  There’s a great gulf between you, and all that sort of thing, you know.”

“Yes,” repeated Dacres, catching his last words—­“yes, a great gulf, as deep as the bottomless abyss, never to be traversed, where she stands on one side, and I on the other, and between us hate, deep and pitiless hate, undying, eternal!”

“Then, by Jove! my dear fellow, what’s the use of trying to fight against it?  You can’t do any thing.  If this were Indiana, now, or even New York, I wouldn’t say any thing, you know; but you know an Indiana divorce wouldn’t do you any good.  Her friends wouldn’t take you on those terms—­and she wouldn’t.  Not she, by Jove!”

“I must go.  I must follow her,” continued Dacres.  “The sight of her has roused a devil within me that I thought was laid.  I’m a changed man, Hawbury.”

“I should think so, by Jove!”

“A changed man,” continued Dacres.  “Oh, Heavens, what power there is in a face!  What terrific influence it has over a man!  Here am I; a few days ago I was a free man; now I am a slave.  But, by Heaven!  I’ll follow her to the world’s end.  She shall not shake me off.  She thinks to be happy without me.  She shall not.  I will silently follow as an avenging fate.  I can not have her, and no one else shall.  The same cursed fate that severs her from me shall keep her away from others.  If I am lonely and an exile, she shall not be as happy as she expects.  I shall not be the only one to suffer.”