But his eyes were blessed by no such fair vision or reality; nor, in
truth, were the eager, unquiet flutterings of the doves indicative of
any joyful intelligence, which they longed to share with Hilda's friend,
but of anxious inquiries that they knew not how to utter. They could
not tell, any more than he, whither their lost companion had withdrawn
herself, but were in the same void despondency with him, feeling their
sunny and airy lives darkened and grown imperfect, now that her sweet
society was taken out of it.
In the brisk morning air, Kenyon found it much easier to pursue his
researches than at the preceding midnight, when, if any slumberers heard
the clamor that he made, they had responded only with sullen and drowsy
maledictions, and turned to sleep again. It must be a very dear and
intimate reality for which people will be content to give up a dream.
When the sun was fairly up, however, it was quite another thing. The
heterogeneous population, inhabiting the lower floor of the old tower,
and the other extensive regions of the palace, were now willing to tell
all they knew, and imagine a great deal more. The amiability of these
Italians, assisted by their sharp and nimble wits, caused them to
overflow with plausible suggestions, and to be very bounteous in their
avowals of interest for the lost Hilda. In a less demonstrative people,
such expressions would have implied an eagerness to search land and sea,
and never rest till she were found. In the mouths that uttered them they
meant good wishes, and were, so far, better than indifference. There
was little doubt that many of them felt a genuine kindness for the shy,
brown-haired, delicate young foreign maiden, who had flown from some
distant land to alight upon their tower, where she consorted only with
the doves. But their energy expended itself in exclamation, and they
were content to leave all more active measures to Kenyon, and to the
Virgin, whose affair it was to see that the faithful votary of her lamp
received no harm.
In a great Parisian domicile, multifarious as its inhabitants might
be, the concierge under the archway would be cognizant of all their
incomings and issuings forth. But except in rare cases, the general
entrance and main staircase of a Roman house are left as free as the
street, of which they form a sort of by-lane. The sculptor, therefore,
could hope to find information about Hilda's movements only from casual
observers.
On probing the knowledge of these people to the bottom, there was
various testimony as to the period when the girl had last been seen.
Some said that it was four days since there had been a trace of her;
but an English lady, in the second piano of the palace, was rather of
opinion that she had met her, the morning before, with a drawing-book
in her hand. Having no acquaintance with the young person, she had taken
little notice and might have been mistaken. A count, on the piano next
above, was very certain that he had lifted his hat to Hilda, under the
archway, two afternoons ago. An old woman, who had formerly tended the
shrine, threw some light upon the matter, by testifying that the lamp
required to be replenished once, at least, in three days, though its
reservoir of oil was exceedingly capacious.