The gulf was destruction, annihilation, death; but if death was decreed, why should not the agony be brief?
Beyond this vision there faintly glimmered another, as in the children's game of the "magic lantern" a picture is superposed on the white wall before the last one has quite faded.

It represented Mary Garland standing there with eyes in which the horror seemed slowly, slowly to expire, and hanging, motionless hands which at last made no resistance when his own offered to take them.

When, of old, a man was burnt at the stake it was cruel to have to be present; but if one was present it was kind to lend a hand to pile up the fuel and make the flames do their work quickly and the smoke muffle up the victim.

With all deference to your kindness, this was perhaps an obligation you would especially feel if you had a reversionary interest in something the victim was to leave behind him.
One morning, in the midst of all this, Rowland walked heedlessly out of one of the city gates and found himself on the road to Fiesole.

It was a completely lovely day; the March sun felt like May, as the English poet of Florence says; the thick-blossomed shrubs and vines that hung over the walls of villa and podere flung their odorous promise into the warm, still air.