The death that follows was no doubt designed by the author to have something tragic and what may be called almost sensational about it, to relieve by contrast the contemplative texture of the work. Cornelius finds Marius in depression and weariness at White-nights, and contrasting sadly his own languor of spirit with the irrepressible youth of the other. They set off for Rome. The plague is ravaging the land, and this, together with a shock of earthquake, loosens the superstitions of the natives; an attack is made on a body of Christians who are praying by the grave of the martyr Hyacinthus. Blood is shed, and the group, including Cornelius and Marius, are arrested and sent for trial to the chief town of the district. Marius, in obedience to a sudden instinct, procures the liberation of Cornelius by bribing the guards, explaining to Cornelius that he is allowed to depart to procure the means of legal defence. The first feeling of Marius as he sees Cornelius depart is a kind of innocent pride that he, who had always believed himself to lack the heroic temper, could thus display a sudden courage. But a mood of dark melancholy follows; he foresees that he will suffer the death of a common felon, without even the Christian consolation of the martyr’s example. The hardships of the march bring on a fever, and Marius is abandoned by the guard as a dying man in a little hill village. At first the rest and quiet relieve his tortured mind, and he is filled with a sense of gratitude to the unseen Friend who has guarded him through his long journey, and draws near in faith to the crucified Jesus. In this half-peaceful mood he finds himself able to think of death with an intense and reverent curiosity, as of a door through which he must pass to his further pilgrimage. And then the weariness comes back tenfold as death draws near; the Christians of the place surround his bed, and hearing of the deed he has done in saving Cornelius, administer the last rites, the consecrated bread, the holy oil; and when all is over bury him with the accustomed prayers, and with an added joy, holding him to have been a martyr indeed. Such is the progress of this melancholy and meditative soul, to whom even youth had hardly been a season of joy, so oppressed was it by the sad malady of thought.