Minna smiled. The argument was a long one. She had to fight the objections and doubts and unwillingness of a man whose last experiences of life, outside his own city, had been the rough and painful ones of a soldier, subject to all kinds of pain and privations; one who had come into the great city after endless and exhausting struggles, and who clung to it as one who felt that he had a nook there which he knew, whereas all the world outside was cold and strange and empty. If one must die, it were better to die at home. He realized, with an intensity which showed what strength and life still lay behind the broken-down outer man, that he was a wreck and a ruin; he was sure he would be a hateful burden, a nuisance--a nuisance to anyone whose companion he might be. Minna was very patient. Point by point she fought his doubts and fears and scruples, and at last told him that, whatever he might think, he had still duties in the world, and that he ought to go where he could gain strength and prepare himself to meet them. ‘And my duties, signora, what may they be? Where do they lie?’ ‘As long as Fulvia lives you have a duty to her,’ replied Minna calmly, and she saw him start and turn pale. ‘You cannot cast it aside. One day you will meet her again. I am absolutely certain of it. You do not know in what condition you may meet her. You do not know what her need may be, nor how you can minister to it, but this much is certain: that you ought to be ready to help her if she should need help--and how should she not need it, sooner or later?’ It was this argument which, more than any of the others, prevailed. When he went away, she had his promise, and she had made him give her his exact address. He also promised to see her on the morrow, and let her know that he was getting ready to go with her. He had even come so far back to the real, practical world as to wonder, with ill-concealed uneasiness, what her friends and relations would say to her importation into their midst of such a wretched scarecrow as himself. ‘Fortunately,’ said Minna, ‘I am not dependent on what my friends and relations say. And they are not barbarians, either.’ He did not fail her. He was ready and waiting when she called for him at the appointed time--a transformed man, as to outward appearance, though with a somewhat nervous and scared expression, as if no such step had ever been taken by anyone before. The noise and bustle of the station and the departure of the train were over. They were outside the city. The long uninteresting line of the gigantic basilica of San Paolo without the Walls had gradually disappeared from their view. The campagna stretched desolately around them. The sun went down in the west, in a red ball of fire. Signor Oriole’s eyes strained into the distance, towards the faint-blue cloud which still showed him where the city lay, and his lips moved as he murmured to himself: ‘Rome--for whom I have lived--grant me to die in thine arms!’ CHAPTER XIV.