Flinging aside the morbid hesitation, and the dallyings with his own wishes, which he had permitted to influence his mind throughout the day, he now hastened to the Via Portoghese.  Soon the old palace stood before him, with its massive tower rising into the clouded night; obscured from view at its midmost elevation, but revealed again, higher upward, by the Virgin’s lamp that twinkled on the summit.  Feeble as it was, in the broad, surrounding gloom, that little ray made no inconsiderable illumination among Kenyon’s sombre thoughts; for; remembering Miriam’s last words, a fantasy had seized him that he should find the sacred lamp extinguished.

And even while he stood gazing, as a mariner at the star in which he put his trust, the light quivered, sank, gleamed up again, and finally went out, leaving the battlements of Hilda’s tower in utter darkness.  For the first time in centuries, the consecrated and legendary flame before the loftiest shrine in Rome had ceased to burn.

CHAPTER XLIV

THE DESERTED SHRINE

Kenyon knew the sanctity which Hilda (faithful Protestant, and daughter of the Puritans, as the girl was) imputed to this shrine.  He was aware of the profound feeling of responsibility, as well earthly as religious, with which her conscience had been impressed, when she became the occupant of her aerial chamber, and undertook the task of keeping the consecrated lamp alight.  There was an accuracy and a certainty about Hilda’s movements, as regarded all matters that lay deep enough to have their roots in right or wrong, which made it as possible and safe to rely upon the timely and careful trimming of this lamp (if she were in life, and able to creep up the steps), as upon the rising of to-morrow’s sun, with lustre-undiminished from to-day.

The sculptor could scarcely believe his eyes, therefore, when he saw the flame flicker and expire.  His sight had surely deceived him.  And now, since the light did not reappear, there must be some smoke wreath or impenetrable mist brooding about the tower’s gray old head, and obscuring it from the lower world.  But no!  For right over the dim battlements, as the wind chased away a mass of clouds, he beheld a star, and moreover, by an earnest concentration of his sight, was soon able to discern even the darkened shrine itself.  There was no obscurity around the tower; no infirmity of his own vision.  The flame had exhausted its supply of oil, and become extinct.  But where was Hilda?

A man in a cloak happened to be passing; and Kenyon—­anxious to distrust the testimony of his senses, if he could get more acceptable evidence on the other side—­appealed to him.

“Do me the favor, Signore,” said he, “to look at the top of yonder tower, and tell me whether you see the lamp burning at the Virgin’s shrine.”