He felt that if he did not die of exposure he was safe, and to a man in his condition bad weather is the least of evils.
His reflections were not sweet.

Five hours earlier he had been dressed as a fine gentleman should be, seated at a luxurious table in the company of a handsome and amusing woman who was to be his wife.

He could still almost taste the delicate _chaud froid_, the tender woodcock, the dry champagne; he could still almost hear Donna Tullia's last noisy sally ringing in his ears--and behold, he was now sitting by the roadside in the rain, in the wretched garb of a begging monk, five hours' journey from Rome.

He had left his affianced bride without a word of warning, had abandoned all his possessions to Temistocle--that scoundrelly thief Temistocle!--and he was utterly alone.
But as he rested himself, drawing his monk's hood closely over his head and trying to warm his freezing feet with the skirts of his rough brown frock, he reflected that if he ever got safely across the frontier he would be treated as a patriot, as a man who had suffered for the cause, and certainly as a man who deserved to be rewarded.

He reflected that Donna Tullia was a woman who had a theatrical taste for romance, and that his present position was in theory highly romantic, however uncomfortable it might be in the practice.