It brought us after a while to the edge of a common, stretching before us, drear and brown, as far as my eye could reach. A wild, weird-looking flat, with no sign of cultivation; and the road running across it lying in deep ruts, where moss and grass were springing. As far as I could guess, it was drawing near to five o'clock; and, if we had wandered out of our way, the right road took an opposite direction some miles behind us. There was no gleam of sunshine now, no vision of blue overhead. All there was gray, gloomy, and threatening. The horizon was rapidly becoming invisible; a thin, cold, clinging vapor shut it from us. Every few minutes a fold of this mist overtook us, and wrapped itself about us, until the moaning wind drifted it away. Minima was quite silent now, and her weary feet dragged along the rough road. The hand which rested upon my wrist felt hot, as it clasped it closely. The child was worn out, and was suffering more than I did, though in uncomplaining patience. "Are you very tired, my Minima?" I asked. "It will be so nice to go to bed, when we reach the convent," she said, looking up with a smile. "I can't imagine why the prince has not come yet." "Perhaps he is coming all the time," I answered, "and he'll find us when we want him worst." We plodded on after that, looking for the convent, or for any dwelling where we could stay till morning. But none came in sight, or any person from whom we could learn where we were wandering. I was growing frightened, dismayed. What would become of us both, if we could find no shelter from the cold of a February night? There were unshed tears in my eyes--for I would not let Minima know my fears--when I saw dimly, through the mist, a high cross standing in the midst of a small grove of yews and cypresses, planted formally about it. There were three tiers of steps at its foot, the lowest partly screened from the gathering rain by the trees. The shaft of the cross, with a serpent twining about its base, rose high above the cypresses; and the image of the Christ hanging upon its crossbeams fronted the east, which was now heavy with clouds. The half-closed eyes seemed to be gazing over the vast wintry plain, lying in the brown desolateness of a February evening. The face was full of an unutterable and complete agony, and there was the helpless languor of dying in the limbs. The rain was beating against it, and the wind sobbing in the trees surrounding it. It seemed so sad, so forsaken, that it drew us to it. Without speaking the child and I crept to the shelter at its foot, and sat down to rest there, as if we were companions to it in its loneliness.