A panic seemed to seize her as she saw him open it. She ran after him. "Don Ippolito, Don Ippolito," she said, coming up to him; and stammered and faltered. "I don't know; I am frightened. You must do nothing from me; I cannot let you; I'm not fit to advise you. It must be wholly from your own conscience. Oh no, don't look so! I _will_ be your friend, whatever happens. But if what you think of doing has seemed so terrible to you, perhaps it _is_ more terrible than I can understand. If it is the only way, it is right. But is there no other? What I mean is, have you no one to talk all this over with? I mean, can't you speak of it to--to Mr. Ferris? He is so true and honest and just."
"I was going to him," said Don Ippolito, with a dim trouble in his face.
"Oh, I am so glad of that! Remember, I don't take anything back. No matter what happens, I will be your friend. But he will tell you just what to do."
Florida went back to her mother, who asked her, "What in the world have you and Don Ippolito been talking about so earnestly? What makes you so pale and out of breath?"
"I have been wanting to tell you, mother," said Florida. She drew her chair in front of the elder lady, and sat down.
Don Ippolito did not go directly to the painter's. He walked toward his house at first, and then turned aside, and wandered out through the noisy and populous district of Canaregio to the Campo di Marte. A squad of cavalry which had been going through some exercises there was moving off the parade ground; a few infantry soldiers were strolling about under the trees. Don Ippolito walked across the field to the border of the lagoon, where he began to pace to and fro, with his head sunk in deep thought. He moved rapidly, but sometimes he stopped and stood still in the sun, whose heat he did not seem to feel, though a perspiration bathed his pale face and stood in drops on his forehead under the shadow of his nicchio. Some little dirty children of the poor, with which this region swarms, looked at him from the sloping shore of the Campo di Giustizia, where the executions used to take place, and a small boy began to mock his movements and pauses, but was arrested by one of the girls, who shook him and gesticulated warningly.