“For if we do this, they will never know!” he muttered with chattering teeth, “A horse is always a horse—­and this is a good animal, more valuable than the men;—­and when they find the men that is none of our business.  In—­in with you, Madama!  I will drive you into the city,—­that is, if you give me a thousand francs instead of the five hundred your man promised me!  Otherwise I will leave you here!”

“A thousand!” shrieked Richaud, “Oh, thief!  You know I am a poor stranger—­Oh, mon Dieu!  Do not murder me!” This, as the driver, having hustled her into the vehicle and shut the door, now shook his dirty fist at her threateningly.  “Oh!—­what a night of horror!  Yes—­ yes!—­a thousand!—­anything!—­only take me back to Rome!”

Satisfied in his own mind that he had intimidated her sufficiently to make her give him whatever he demanded, the driver who, despite his native cupidity, was seriously alarmed for his own safety, hesitated no longer, and the noise of the dashing wheels and the galloping hoofs woke loud echoes from the road, and dull reverberations from the Ponte Nomentano, as the equipage, with two horses now instead of one, clattered out of sight.  And then came silence,—­the awful silence of the Campagna—­a silence like no other silence in the world—­brooding like darkness around the dead.

XXIV.

The next morning dawned with all the strange half mystical glow of light and colour common to the Italian sky,—­flushes of pink warmed the gray clouds, and dazzling, opalescent lines of blue suggested the sun without declaring it,—­and Sylvie Hermenstein, who had passed a restless and wakeful night, rose early to go on one of what her society friends called her “eccentric” walks abroad, before the full life of the city was up and stirring.  She, who seemed by her graceful mignonne fascinations and elegant toilettes, just a butterfly of fashion and no more, was truly of a dreamy and poetic nature,—­she had read very deeply, and the griefs and joys of humanity presented an ever-varying problem to her refined and penetrative mind.  She was just now interesting herself in subjects which she had never studied so closely before,—­and she was gradually arriving at the real secret of the highest duty of life,—­ that of serving and working for others without consideration for oneself.  A great love was teaching her as only a great love can;—­a love which she scarcely dared to admit to herself, but which nevertheless was beginning to lead her step by step, into that mysterious land, half light, half shadow, which is the nearest road to Heaven,—­a land where we suffer gladly for another’s sorrow, and are joyous in our own griefs, because another is happy!  To love one greatly, means to love all more purely,—­and to find heart-room and sympathy for the many sorrows and perplexities of those who are not as uplifted as ourselves.  For the true mission of the divine passion in its divinest form,