incident of the
woman's face at the carriage window reappears in The Marble Faun.
"She told it," he says, "on the authority of Mrs. Gaskell, to whom the
personages were known. A lady, recently married, was observed to be in a
melancholy frame of mind, and fell into a bad state of health. She told
her husband that she was haunted with the constant vision of a certain
face, which affected her with an indescribable horror, and was the cause
of her melancholy and illness. The physician prescribed travel, and they
went first to Paris, where the lady's spirits grew somewhat better, and
the vision haunted her less constantly. They purposed going to Italy,
and before their departure from Paris a letter of introduction was given
them by a friend, directed to a person in Rome. On their arrival in Rome
the letter was delivered; the person called, and in his face the lady
recognized the precise reality of her vision. By-the-bye, I think the
lady saw this face in the streets of Rome before the introduction took
place. The end of the story is that the husband was almost immediately
recalled to England by an urgent summons; the wife disappeared that very
night, and was recognized driving out of Rome, in a carriage, in tears,
and accompanied by the visionary unknown. It is a very foolish story,
but told as truth. Mrs. Story also said that in an Etruscan tomb, on the
Barberini estate, the form and impression, in dust, of a female figure
were discovered. Not even a bone of her was left; but where her neck had
been there lay a magnificent necklace, all of gold and of the richest
workmanship. The necklace, just as it was found (except, I suppose,
for a little furbishing), is now worn by the Princess Barberini as her
richest adornment. Mrs. Story herself had on a bracelet composed, I
think, of seven ancient Etruscan scorabei in carnelian, every one of
which has been taken from a separate tomb, and on one side of each was
engraved the signet of the person to whom it had belonged and who
had carried it to the grave with him. This bracelet would make a good
connecting link for a series of Etruscan tales, the more fantastic the
better!"

On the first day of October, 1859, we left Florence by railway for Siena
on our way back to Rome. There had been no drawbacks to our enjoyment of
the city and of our villa and of the people we had met. We departed with
regret; had we stayed on there, instead, and not again attempted the
fatal air of the Seven H