Farina's hungry glances devoured each footmark of their track.
Where the moon held no lantern for him, he went on his knees, and groped
for his lost treasure with a miser's eager patience of agony, drawing his
hand slowly over the stony kerb and between the interstices of the
thick-sown flints, like an acute-feeling worm. Despair grew heavy in his
breast. At every turning he invoked some good new saint to aid him, and
ran over all the propitiations his fancy could suggest and his religious
lore inspire. By-and-by they reached the head of the street where
Margarita dwelt. The moon was dipping down, and paler, as if touched with
a warning of dawn. Chill sighs from the open land passed through the
spaces of the city. On certain coloured gables and wood-crossed fronts,
the white light lingered; but mostly the houses were veiled in dusk, and
Gottlieb's house was confused in the twilight with those of his
neighbours, notwithstanding its greater stateliness and the old grandeur
of its timbered bulk. They determined to take up their position there
again, and paced on, Farina with his head below his shoulders, and Guy
nostril in air, as if uneasy in his sense of smell.
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