The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-05

somewhere on the shoulders of a living
 manw
 Tt is AIiriafns model!" whispered Don
 atello, finging the sketch from him with
 shudder of disgust.
 Hiida and Kenyon stared at it bewil-
 dered. Had Guido in an effort to repre-
 sent the utmost of sin and misery hit
 ideally on this face? Or was 1t an actual
 portrait of somebody who had haunted
 the old master as Miriam was haunted
 now? Did the omnibus shadow follow him all through the sunshine of his early
 career and into the gloom that gathered
 about its close? And, when Guido died,
 did the spectre betake himself to the sep
 ulchre, there to await new victim till it was Miriam's fll-hap to encounter
 him?
 Whatever dark fate had brought him
 to wander through the modern day, his hour had struck. Even while the three
 were looking at the picture which was so strangely like him his end was drawing
 near-unguessed not only by himself, but
 unguessed by the very ones at whose hands it was to come.
 There fell a night of rare moonlight on
 Rome. Immediately a band of artists arranged a visit to the Coliseum and other great ruins, and the four friends were of the party. Long they wandered
 from hallowed place to hallowed place,
 until when midnight came they had scat tered widely, and Miriam and Donatello found themselves on a parapet on the edge of the Tarpeian Rock, whence many an ancient traitor had been hurled to his death
 "Who are they" asked he, "who were
 flung over here in days gone by?"
 "Men that cumbered the earth" she replied Men whose lives were the bane
 of their fellow creatures" "Was it well done?' asked he. looking earnestly in her face.
 'It was we'll done,' answered Miriam. Innocent people were saved by the de- struction of guilty one who deserved his doom." As she spoke figure approached Mi riam. Overcome by a sudden fear, she sank to her knees. At that same instant Hilda strayed where she saw the three forms on the parapet. The night was torn by a loud, fearful cry that began high in the air and shot quivering down.
 ward to the earth. It was begun and ended in one breathless instant, and she had turned and fled almost before the cry had ceased to quaver. "What have you done?' whispered Mi riam in voice stricken with horror. q did what your eyes bade me do," sald Donatello, when I asked them with mine as I held the wretch over the prec- ipicel"
 And my eyes bade you do it!'' said she with unutterable dread. She had not known 1t. But she could not deny that wild joy had famed up in her when she beheld her tormentor in his mortal peril.
 "Yes, Donatello," she cried pressing him close till their two hearts beat to- gether, you speak truth. My heart con- scented to what you did. The deed knots us together, for time and eternity, like the coils of serpentv'
 The young man seemed to have diated with the fierce energy suddenly inspired in him. It had kindled him into a man. 1t had developed within him an intelli- gence which was no native characteristic of the Donatello of old. That simple and | joyous creature was gone forever. For evermore, Miriam" said he. Our | two lives have been cemented forever l more with his blood. He shuddered at | the word which he had himself spoken. | It may be that it brought home to the | simplicity of his imagination what he had