Maud, who had scarcely heeded the first large drops, was forced to seek shelter when the clouds suddenly burst, and she took refuge at the right extremity of the colonnade of St.Peter's.

How had she gone that far?
She did not know herself precisely.

She remembered vaguely that she had wandered through a labyrinth of small streets, had crossed the Tiber--no doubt by the Garibaldi bridge--had passed through a large garden--doubtless the Janicule, since she had walked along a portion of the ramparts.

She had left the city by the Porte de Saint-Pancrace, to follow by that of Cavallegieri the sinuous line of the Urban walls.
That corner of Rome, with a view of the pines of the Villa Pamfili on one side, and on the other the back part of the Vatican, serves as a promenade during the winter for the few cardinals who go in search of the afternoon sun, certain there of meeting only a few strangers.

In the month of May it is a desert, scorched by the sun, which glows upon the brick, discolored by two centuries of that implacable heat which caresses the scales of the green and gray lizards about to crawl between the bees of Pope Urbain VIII's escutcheon of the Barberini family.
Madame Gorka's instinct had at least served her in leading her upon a route on which she met no one.