The day was fine and cool, and walking was easier and less exhausting than it had been at the season of his first visit; moreover, his journey to Rome had braced his nerves and sinews to exertion, and restored to him the energy and self-possession which the long, tedious, monotonous years of solitude in Ruscino had weakened.  There was a buoyant wind coming from the sea with rain in its track, and a deep blue sky with grand clouds drifting past the ultramarine hues of the Abruzzo range.  The bare brown rocks grew dark as bronze, and the forest-clothed hills were almost black in the shadows, as the clustered towers and roofs of the little city came in sight.  He went, fatigued as he was, straight to the old ducal palace, which was now used as the municipality, without even shaking the dust off his feet.

“Say that I come for the affair of Adone Alba,” he said to the first persons he saw in the ante-room on the first floor.  In the little ecclesiastical town his calling commanded respect.  They begged him to sit own and rest, and in a few minutes returned to say that the most illustrious the Count Corradini would receive him at once in his private room; it was a day of general council, but the council would not meet for an hour.  The Syndic was a tall, spare, frail man, with a patrician’s face and an affable manner.  He expressed himself in courteous terms as flattered by the visit of the Vicar Ruscino, and inquired if in any way he could be of the slightest service.

“Of the very greatest, your Excellency,” said Don Silverio.  “I have ventured to come hither on behalf of a young parishioner of mine, Adone Alba, who, having received the summons of your Excellency only yesterday, may, I trust, be excused for not having obeyed it on the date named.  He is unable to come to-day.  May I offer myself for his substitute as amicus curie!”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Corradini, relieved to meet an educated man instead of the boor he had expected.  “If the summons were delayed by any fault of my officials, the delay must be inquired into.  Meanwhile, most reverend, have you instructions to conclude the affair?”

“As yet, I venture to remind your Excellency, we do not even know what is the affair of which you speak.”

“Oh no; quite true.  The matter is the sale of the land known under the title of the Terra Vergine.”

“Thank Heaven I am here, and not Adone,” thought Don Silverio.

Aloud he answered, “What sale?  The proprietor has heard of none.”

“He must have heard.  It can be no news to you that the works about to be made upon the river Edera will necessitate the purchase of the land known as the Terra Vergine.”

Here the Syndic put on gold spectacles, drew towards him a black portfolio filled by plans and papers, and began to move them about, muttering, as he searched, little scraps of phrases out of each of them.  At last he turned over the sheets which concerned the land of the Alba.