vessels, the colour of the gold or silver, and of the gems, washed into one half of the design and the other side left in black and white.  A little black cross hung above the bedstead, with a bit of an olive branch nailed over it—­a reminiscence of the last Palm Sunday.  There were two nails in another part of the room, on which some old clothes were hung—­that was all.  But the deep light of the failing day shed a peaceful halo aver everything, and touched the coarse details of a hardworking existence with the divine light of Heaven.

Lucia’s sobbing ceased after a while, and, as the sunset faded into twilight and dusk, the silence grew more profound; the sick man’s breathing became lighter, as though in his unconsciousness he were beginning to rest after the day in which he had endured so much.  From the sitting-room beyond the short passage the sound of Maria Luisa’s voice, moaning in concert with old Assunta, gradually diminished till they were heard only at intervals, and at last ceased altogether.  The household of Marzio Pandolfi was hushed in the presence of a great sorrow, and awed by the anticipation of a great misfortune.

CHAPTER XI

Marzio, in ignorance of all that was happening at the church, continued to work in the solitude of his studio, and the current of his thoughts flowed on in the same channel.  He tried to force his attention upon the details of the design he meditated against his brother’s life, and for some time he succeeded.  But another influence had begun to work upon his brain, since the moment when he had been frightened by the sound behind him while he was examining the hole beneath the strong box.  He would not own to himself that such a senseless fear could have produced a permanent impression on him, and yet he felt disturbed and unsettled, unaccountably discomposed, and altogether uncomfortable.  He could not help looking round from time to time at the door, and more than once his eyes rested for several seconds upon the safe, while a slight shiver ran through his body and seemed to chill his fingers.

But he worked on in spite of all this.  The habit of the chisel was not to be destroyed by the fancied scare of a moment, and though his eyes wandered now and then, they came back to the silver statue as keen as ever.  A little touch with the steel at one point, a little burnishing at another, the accentuation of a line, the deepening of a shadow—­he studied every detail with a minute and scrupulous care which betrayed his love for the work he was doing.