The sunset was rushing to its height through every possible phase of violence and splendour. From the Mediterranean, storm-clouds were rising fast to the assault and conquest of the upper sky, which still above the hills shone blue and tranquil. But the north-west wind and the sea were leagued against it. They sent out threatening fingers and long spinning veils of cloud across it--skirmishers that foretold the black and serried lines, the torn and monstrous masses behind. Below these wild tempest shapes, again,--in long spaces resting on the sea--the heaven was at peace, shining in delicate greens and yellows, infinitely translucent and serene, above the dazzling lines of water. Over Rome itself there was a strange massing and curving of the clouds. Between their blackness and the deep purple of the Campagna, rose the city--pale phantom--upholding one great dome, and one only, to the view of night and the world. Round and above and behind, beneath the long flat arch of the storm, glowed a furnace of scarlet light. The buildings of the city were faint specks within its fierce intensity, dimly visible through a sea of fire. St. Peter's alone, without visible foundation or support, had consistence, form, identity.--And between the city and the hills, waves of blue and purple shade, forerunners of the night, stole over the Campagna towards the higher ground. But the hills themselves were still shining, still clad in rose and amethyst, caught in gentler repetition from the wildness of the west. Pale rose even the olive-gardens; rose the rich brown fallows, the emerging farms; while drawn across the Campagna from north to south, as though some mighty brush had just laid it there for sheer lust of colour, sheer joy in the mating it with the rose,--one long strip of sharpest, purest green. Mrs. Burgoyne turned at last from the great spectacle to her companion. 'One has really no adjectives left,' she said. 'But I had used mine up within a week.' 'It still gives you so much pleasure?' he said, looking at her a little askance. Her face changed at once. 'And you?--you are beginning to be tired of it?' 'One gets a sort of indigestion.--Oh! I shall be all right to-morrow.' Both were silent for a moment. Then he resumed.-- 'I met General Fenton in the Borgia rooms this morning.' She turned, with a quick look of curiosity. 'Well?'