With a dreary laugh he rose from his seat, feeling cramped and chill in the grim shadows. He went outside, but the sunlight had died out of the sky and all the beautiful, brilliant world was dull and grey; the magic light had passed away from on land and water, leaving a sombre, weary earth, across which the wind blew cold and bleak.
"Rose-coloured spectacles! Rose-coloured spectacles!" he muttered, plunging into the gloomy stairs of the street. "If I could only buy a pair."
Peppino and Tista were waiting for him at the Albergo Garibaldi, and in a few minutes he was on his way back to the Villa Medici.
The sun had disappeared behind the distant hills, and in a rose-coloured sky hung the faint shadow of a waning moon, looking thin and haggard amid the fast-fading splendour.
"She is like the moon," he sighed sadly, "like the pale, cold moon. As fair--as calm--and as lifeless as that dead world."
[CHAPTER IX.]
"OH, WILT THOU BE MY BRIDE, KATHLEEN?"
"Say 'Yes' or 'No'
Before we part.
Come joy or woe,