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244ARIADNE.three thousand years, and had yet not done hislabours.The sky waslike abrazen vessel,and the feet ofthe few passing people sounded always like thesteps of muffled mourners burying their dead.By night in the white streets there seemed to beno other thing than the masked men and thetorches and the dead.It wasnot a sickher season thananyother, theysaid;but thusit seemed everto me, andthenoiseof the fountains lost allmelody to my ears, andsounded only a duU hollow murmur, as of a seathat could neverwash out thecrimes of thebloodstainedearth.Iwandered stupidly to and fro, and nearlyalways, day and night, sat on the threshold ofher door, the dog beside me.Icould do her no good.Itis hard to suffer oneself; but not to be ableto spare from suffering what we love — that isworse. She was almost always silent. Silenceseemed to have fallen onher like a spell. Fromthe night when Giulio had told her the hideoustruth she had scarcely spoken, save once or twice,