The long winter had been a season of unvarying sullenness.

At last, on this day he awoke with a sharp flash of lightning in the earliest twilight: in a little while the heavy rain had filtered the air: the clear light was abroad; and, as though the spring had set in with a sudden leap in the heart of things, the whole scene around him lay like some untarnished picture beneath a sky of delicate blue.

Under the spell of his late depression, Marius had suddenly determined to leave Rome for a while.

But desiring first to advertise Cornelius of his movements, and failing to find him in his lodgings, he had ventured, still early in the day, to seek him in the Cecilian villa.

Passing through its silent and empty court-yard he loitered for a moment, to admire.