t, if he could lay hold of this one clew, it would guide him
directly in the track of Hilda's footsteps. With this purpose in
view, he went, every morning, to the Via Portoghese, and made it
the starting-point of fresh investigations. After nightfall, too, he
invariably returned thither, with a faint hope fluttering at his heart
that the lamp might again be shining on the summit of the tower, and
would dispel this ugly mystery out of the circle consecrated by its
rays. There being no point of which he could take firm hold, his mind
was filled with unsubstantial hopes and fears. Once Kenyon had seemed
to cut his life in marble; now he vaguely clutched at it, and found it
vapor.

In his unstrung and despondent mood, one trifling circumstance affected
him with an idle pang. The doves had at first been faithful to their
lost mistress. They failed not to sit in a row upon her window-sill,
or to alight on the shrine, or the church-angels, and on the roofs
and portals of the neighboring houses, in evident expectation of her
reappearance. After the second week, however, they began to take flight,
and dropping off by pairs, betook themselves to other dove-cotes. Only a
single dove remained, and brooded drearily beneath the shrine. The
flock that had departed were like the many hopes that had vanished
from Kenyon's heart; the one that still lingered, and looked so
wretched,--was it a Hope, or already a Despair?

In the street, one day, the sculptor met a priest of mild and venerable
aspect; and as his mind dwelt continually upon Hilda, and was especially
active in bringing up all incidents that had ever been connected with
her, it immediately struck him that this was the very father with whom
he had seen her at the confessional. Such trust did Hilda inspire
in him, that Kenyon had never asked what was the subject of the
communication between herself and this old priest. He had no reason for
imagining that it could have any relation with her disappearance,
so long subsequently; but, being thus brought face to face with a
personage, mysteriously associated, as he now remembered, with her whom
he had lost, an impulse ran before his thoughts and led the sculptor to
address him.

It might be that the reverend kindliness of the old man's expression
took Kenyon's heart by surprise; at all events, he spoke as if there
were a recognized acquaintanceship, and an object of mutual interest
between them.

"She has gone from me, father,"