Whether it was that the harp-strings were broken, the violin out of tune, or the flautist out of breath, so it chanced that the music had ceased, and the dancers come abruptly to a pause.  All that motley throng of rioters was dissolved as suddenly as it had been drawn together.  In Miriam’s remembrance the scene had a character of fantasy.  It was as if a company of satyrs, fauns, and nymphs, with Pan in the midst of them, had been disporting themselves in these venerable woods only a moment ago; and now in another moment, because some profane eye had looked at them too closely, or some intruder had cast a shadow on their mirth, the sylvan pageant had utterly disappeared.  If a few of the merry-makers lingered among the trees, they had hidden their racy peculiarities under the garb and aspect of ordinary people, and sheltered themselves in the weary commonplace of daily life.  Just an instant before it was Arcadia and the Golden Age.  The spell being broken, it was now only that old tract of pleasure ground, close by the people’s gate of Rome,—­a tract where the crimes and calamities of ages, the many battles, blood recklessly poured out, and deaths of myriads, have corrupted all the soil, creating an influence that makes the air deadly to human lungs.

“You must leave me,” said Miriam to Donatello more imperatively than before; “have I not said it?  Go; and look not behind you.”

“Miriam,” whispered Donatello, grasping her hand forcibly, “who is it that stands in the shadow yonder, beckoning you to follow him?”

“Hush; leave me!” repeated Miriam.  “Your hour is past; his hour has come.”

Donatello still gazed in the direction which he had indicated, and the expression of his face was fearfully changed, being so disordered, perhaps with terror,—­at all events with anger and invincible repugnance,—­that Miriam hardly knew him.  His lips were drawn apart so as to disclose his set teeth, thus giving him a look of animal rage, which we seldom see except in persons of the simplest and rudest natures.  A shudder seemed to pass through his very bones.

“I hate him!” muttered he.

“Be satisfied; I hate him too!” said Miriam.

She had no thought of making this avowal, but was irresistibly drawn to it by the sympathy of the dark emotion in her own breast with that so strongly expressed by Donatello.  Two drops of water or of blood do not more naturally flow into each other than did her hatred into his.

“Shall I clutch him by the throat?” whispered Donatello, with a savage scowl.  “Bid me do so, and we are rid of him forever.”

“In Heaven’s name, no violence!” exclaimed Miriam, affrighted out of the scornful control which she had hitherto held over her companion, by the fierceness that he so suddenly developed.  “O, have pity on me, Donatello, if for nothing else, yet because in the midst of my wretchedness I let myself be your playmate for this one wild hour!  Follow me no farther.  Henceforth leave me to my doom.  Dear friend,—­kind, simple, loving friend,—­make me not more wretched by the remembrance of having thrown fierce hates or loves into the wellspring of your happy life!”