Replying not to this hideous welcome, Adrian, for it was he, pursued his way.  The gates stood wide open:  this was the most appalling sign of all, for, at first, the most jealous precaution had been taken against the ingress of strangers.  Now all care, all foresight, all vigilance, were vain.  And thrice nine warders had died at that single post, and the officers to appoint their successors were dead too!  Law and Police, and the Tribunals of Health, and the Boards of Safety, Death had stopped them all!  And the Plague killed art itself, social union, the harmony and mechanism of civilization, as if they had been bone and flesh!

So, mute and solitary, went on the lover, in his quest of love, resolved to find and to save his betrothed, and guided (that faithful and loyal knight!) through the Wilderness of Horror by the blessed hope of that strange passion, noblest of all when noble, basest of all when base!  He came into a broad and spacious square lined with palaces, the usual haunt of the best and most graceful nobility of Italy.  The stranger was alone now, and the tramp of his gallant steed sounded ghastly and fearful in his own ears, when just as he turned the corner of one of the streets that led from it, he saw a woman steal forth with a child in her arms, while another, yet in infancy clung to her robe.  She held a large bunch of flowers to her nostrils, (the fancied and favourite mode to prevent infection), and muttered to the children, who were moaning with hunger,—­“Yes, yes, you shall have food!  Plenty of food now for the stirring forth.  But oh, that stirring forth!”—­and she peered about and round, lest any of the diseased might be near.

“My friend,” said he, “can you direct me to the convent of—­”

“Away, man, away!” shrieked the woman.

“Alas!” said Adrian, with a mournful smile, “can you not see that I am not, as yet, one to spread contagion?”

But the woman, unheeding him, fled on; when, after a few paces, she was arrested by the child that clung to her.

“Mother, mother!” it cried, “I am sick—­I cannot stir.”

The woman halted, tore aside the child’s robe, saw under the arm the fatal tumour, and, deserting her own flesh, fled with a shriek along the square.  The shriek rang long in Adrian’s ears, though not aware of the unnatural cause;—­the mother feared not for her infant, but herself.  The voice of Nature was no more heeded in that charnel city than it is in the tomb itself!  Adrian rode on at a brisker pace, and came at length before a stately church; its doors were wide open, and he saw within a company of monks (the church had no other worshippers, and they were masked) gathered round the altar, and chanting the Miserere Domine;—­the ministers of God, in a city hitherto boasting the devoutest population in Italy, without a flock!

The young Cavalier paused before the door, and waited till the service was done, and the monks descended the steps into the street.