Under the spur of this resurrection of feeling, he seemed to awake from a long sleep, and he wondered at the lethargy in which he had been content to lie. He saw, in the light of revivified emotion that what was lacking in his life was Ragna and what she symbolized to him: affection and home-ties, and that he now felt the want of her as a painful deprivation and no longer as a vague lack, he wondered that he had been able to go on so long leaving the course of events to chance; it seemed unworthy of his very masculine energy. Why had he waited helplessly on an improbable (he recognised the fact now), appeal? Why had he not followed the girl, or at least kept in touch with her, renewed his offer, forcibly turned her to himself? At the time he had felt that any such action would be indelicate, unworthy of him; but now, his deeper understanding showed him that he had erred on the side of too great delicacy, that the prizes of life are for those who seize them. He thought bitterly of the five wasted years. What had Ragna done? Where had she gone? Back to Norway, perhaps? With a faint hope of tracing her, he went to the pension in the Piazza Montecitorio, where she had stopped. Yes, the landlady remembered the Norwegian ladies, but that was over five years ago. No, they had never returned. Sorry to disappoint the Signore. He thought of Fru Boyesen in whose care he had formerly addressed New Year's cards to Ragna, and wrote her a note asking her if she could give him any information as to her niece's whereabouts. "She will probably not deign to answer, she will think her niece's affairs none of my business, but at least I shall have done what I could," he said to himself. What with the insistence of old memories and the disappointment of his forlorn hope of finding some trace of Ragna, Rome had become intolerable to him, so he wended a leisurely way to Florence where he hoped to receive an answer from Fru Boyesen, and we now see him lazily stretched on a sofa in his room his mind full of Ragna, and the Madonna-face which reminded him of her, although he did not know it, the resemblance being more of expression than of feature, floating in the smoke wreaths about his head. The window was open, and his eye went to where, far over the roofs, S. Miniato enshrined in Cypress rose white and aloof, against the background of sky. Spring was merging into early summer, and the sun beat already white and glaring on the deserted Lung' Arno below. The mountains of Vallombrosa rose cool and green at the head of the valley; it was so clear he could even distinguish the white dots of houses composing the little hamlet perched on the ledge. Down in the river an _arenaiuolo_ poled his boat in a leisurely fashion, a long pink shirt,--the only garment he boasted--flapping limply about his thin, brown legs.