"I think there is no danger," said the surgeon, at last. "Let them get some ice, and make the boy sit up and keep the bandages cool during the night. They have treated you roughly, Senor Carlo! But what on earth induced you to wander about the campagna at this time of night, and this time of year?" "This obstinate rascal, the chimney," answered the artist, "he refused to do his duty unless one stuffed his throat with faggots. I was out of temper with my old Palazzo, Señor Vottore, and felt inclined to give him a kick or two, to warm us both; and so I thought it better to run away before it came to blows between us." "You are ill looked after here," said the good-natured little man, wiping his spectacles, which had become suddenly dimmed. "My wife shall send you another coverlid, and I will see you again tomorrow. Sleep will soon come, and he is the doctor who beats us all." The young man accompanied him to the door, and spoke a few words with him in the passage. "I only know him by name," said the doctor. "He goes his own strange misanthropical way. Prefers sitting in the wine-shop with the lowest faccini, and squanders what he earns. But there is not a man in Rome who is his equal at a cameo. He inherits it from his father, Giovanni Bianchi, who has long been dead." "Are his wounds really not dangerous?" "If he only spares himself and not the ice. He has limbs of iron, or he could not have made head so long against the brutes. Five, do you say? The fool-hardy man! But that is just one of his tricks. Well, well, he will sleep now. Dispel your anxiety, Señor Theodore." He was already asleep, when Theodore returned to his room, although he had turned his face towards the blazing fire. Theodore studied him long. He was very handsome, though the nose was a little too thin; his hair here and there sprinkled with grey; his beard untended; from between the breathing, half-opened lips gleamed the white teeth. When Theodore raised the cloak to place fresh ice on the wounds, he perceived the great strength of his limbs. He sent the boy away, after he had brought a fresh supply of wood and ice, and ordered him to return in the morning. He then drew a chair to the side of the hearth, and seated himself, wrapped in his cloak, to watch. It was about ten o'clock, the bright night reigned without over the deserted square, and the slender stream from the fountain plashed lightly into the Triton's shell. From a neighbouring house he heard a girl's voice, singing:-- "Chi sa se mai Ti soverrai di me!" The refrain of an old sorrowful song. Then it ceased, but hummed wordless within him still. He fancied himself again at the edge of the abyss at Tivoli, on the footway opposite the cascades, which in wintry scantiness gushed down from their many mouths. They walked, but not arm in arm, near each other; he and that fair girl and her lively little companion, who hastened unweariedly along the narrow, toilsome path.