At the Porta San Lorenzo the gates were closed as usual, but the dozing watchman let Del Ferice out of the small door without remark. Any one might leave the city, though it required a pass to gain admittance during the night. The heavily-ironed oak clanged behind the fugitive, and he breathed more freely as he stepped upon the road to Tivoli. In an hour he had crossed the Ponte Mammolo, shuddering as he looked down through the deep gloom at the white foam of the Teverone, swollen with the winter rains. But the fear of the Holy Office was behind him, and he hurried on his lonely way, walking painfully in the sandals he had been obliged to put on to complete his disguise, sinking occasionally ankle-deep in mud, and then trudging over a long stretch of broken stones where the road had been mended; but not noticing nor caring for pain and fatigue, while he felt that every minute took him nearer to the frontier hills where he would be safe from pursuit. And so he toiled on, till he smelled the fetid air of the sulphur springs full fourteen miles from Rome; and at last, as the road began to rise towards Hadrian's Villa, he sat down upon a stone by the wayside to rest a little. He had walked five hours through the darkness, seeing but a few yards of the broad road before him as he went. He was weary and footsore, and the night was growing wilder with gathering wind and rain as the storm swept down the mountains and through the deep gorge of Tivoli on its way to the desolate black Campagna. He felt that if he did not die of exposure he was safe, and to a man in his condition bad weather is the least of evils. His reflections were not sweet. Five hours earlier he had been dressed as a fine gentleman should be, seated at a luxurious table in the company of a handsome and amusing woman who was to be his wife. He could still almost taste the delicate _chaud froid_, the tender woodcock, the dry champagne; he could still almost hear Donna Tullia's last noisy sally ringing in his ears--and behold, he was now sitting by the roadside in the rain, in the wretched garb of a begging monk, five hours' journey from Rome. He had left his affianced bride without a word of warning, had abandoned all his possessions to Temistocle--that scoundrelly thief Temistocle!--and he was utterly alone.