n many of the
brethren." The Convent was at some distance, but she knew the spot, and
fear would wing her steps. She gave one wistful look at the sleeper and
rushed from the house. "I shall see thee again presently," she murmured.
Alas! what hope can calculate beyond the moment? And who shall claim the
tenure of 'The Again?'

It was not many minutes after Irene had left the room, ere, with a long
sigh, Adrian opened his eyes--an altered and another man; the fever was
gone, the reviving pulse beat low indeed, but calm. His mind was once
more master of his body, and, though weak and feeble, the danger was
past, and life and intellect regained.

"I have slept long," he muttered; "and oh, such dreams! And methought
I saw Irene, but could not speak to her, and while I attempted to grasp
her, her face changed, her form dilated, and I was in the clutch of
the foul gravedigger. It is late--the sun is high--I must be up and
stirring. Irene is in Lombardy. No, no; that was a lie, a wicked lie;
she is at Florence, I must renew my search."

As this duty came to his remembrance, he rose from the bed--he was
amazed at his own debility: at first he could not stand without support
from the wall; by degrees, however, he so far regained the mastery of
his limbs as to walk, though with effort and pain. A ravening hunger
preyed upon him, he found some scanty and light food in the chamber,
which he devoured eagerly. And with scarce less eagerness laved his
enfeebled form and haggard face with the water that stood at hand. He
now felt refreshed and invigorated, and began to indue his garments,
which he found thrown on a heap beside the bed. He gazed with surprise
and a kind of self-compassion upon his emaciated hands and shrunken
limbs, and began now to comprehend that he must have had some severe but
unconscious illness. "Alone, too," thought he; "no one near to tend me!
Nature my only nurse! But alas! alas! how long a time may thus have
been wasted, and my adored Irene--quick, quick, not a moment more will I
lose."

He soon found himself in the open street; the air revived him; and that
morning had sprung up the blessed breeze, the first known for weeks. He
wandered on very slowly and feebly till he came to a broad square,
from which, in the vista, might be seen one of the principal gates of
Florence, and the fig-trees and olive-groves beyond, it was then that
a Pilgrim of tall stature approached towards him as from the gate; his
hood