"
After a long silence, Arthur whispered tremulously:
"And Italy shall be His Temple when they are
driven out----"
He stopped; and the soft answer came back:
"'The earth and the fulness thereof are mine,
saith the Lord.'"
CHAPTER V.
THAT afternoon Arthur felt the need of a long
walk. He intrusted his luggage to a fellow-student
and went to Leghorn on foot.
The day was damp and cloudy, but not cold; and
the low, level country seemed to him fairer than he
had ever known it to look before. He had a sense
of delight in the soft elasticity of the wet grass
under his feet and in the shy, wondering eyes of
the wild spring flowers by the roadside. In a
thorn-acacia bush at the edge of a little strip of
wood a bird was building a nest, and flew up as he
passed with a startled cry and a quick fluttering of
brown wings.
He tried to keep his mind fixed upon the devout
meditations proper to the eve of Good Friday.
But thoughts of Montanelli and Gemma got so
much in the way of this devotional exercise that at
last he gave up the attempt and allowed his fancy
to drift away to the wonders and glories of the
coming insurrection, and to the part in it that he
had allotted to his two idols.
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