Father Rocco started when she said those words, as if he had trodden on fire.

“My thought!” he whispered nervously to himself.  “My thought at the moment when she spoke to me!  Marry again?  Another wife, over whom I should have no influence!  Other children, whose education would not be confided to me!  What would become, then, of the restitution that I have hoped for, wrought for, prayed for?”

He stopped, and looked fixedly at the sky above him.  The bridge was deserted.  His black figure rose up erect, motionless, and spectral, with the white still light falling solemnly all around it.  Standing so for some minutes, his first movement was to drop his hand angrily on the parapet of the bridge.  He then turned round slowly in the direction by which the two women had walked away.

“Donna Brigida,” he said, “I will lay you the price of fifty new dresses that Fabio d’Ascoli never marries again!”

He set his face once more toward the studio, and walked on without stopping until he arrived at the master-sculptor’s door.

“Marry again?” he thought to himself, as he rang the bell.  “Donna Brigida, was your first failure not enough for you?  Are you going to try a second time?”

Luca Lomi himself opened the door.  He drew Father Rocco hurriedly into the studio toward a single lamp burning on a stand near the partition between the two rooms.

“Have you heard anything of our poor child?” he asked.  “Tell me the truth! tell me the truth at once!”

“Hush! compose yourself.  I have heard,” said Father Rocco, in low, mournful tones.

Luca tightened his hold on the priest’s arm, and looked into his face with breathless, speechless eagerness.

“Compose yourself,” repeated Father Rocco.  “Compose yourself to hear the worst.  My poor Luca, the doctors have given up all hope.”

Luca dropped his brother’s arm with a groan of despair.  “Oh, Maddalena! my child—­my only child!”

Reiterating these words again and again, he leaned his head against the partition and burst into tears.  Sordid and coarse as his nature was, he really loved his daughter.  All the heart he had was in his statues and in her.

After the first burst of his grief was exhausted, he was recalled to himself by a sensation as if some change had taken place in the lighting of the studio.  He looked up directly, and dimly discerned the priest standing far down at the end of the room nearest the door, with the lamp in his hand, eagerly looking at something.

“Rocco!” he exclaimed, “Rocco, why have you taken the lamp away?  What are you doing there?”

There was no movement and no answer.  Luca advanced a step or two, and called again.  “Rocco, what are you doing there?”

The priest heard this time, and came suddenly toward his brother, with the lamp in his hand—­so suddenly that Luca started.

“What is it?” he asked, in astonishment.  “Gracious God, Rocco, how pale you are!”