Giulietta rose, and threw herself before the crucifix.  A violent burst of tears, the first she had shed, relieved her; and then calmly she prayed aloud for strength to go through the task which she had undertaken.  The room was hot and oppressive; but she opened the window, and the sweet air came in, fresh and reviving from the garden below.  She bathed her uncle’s temples with aromatic waters, and poured into his mouth a few drops of medicine.  He opened his eyes, and turned faintly on his pallet, but sank back, as though exhausted.  Again he stretched out his hand, as if in search for something, which failing to find he moaned heavily.  Giulietta perceived at once that parching thirst was consuming him.  From the balcony a flight of steps led to the garden; she flew down them to the fountain, whose pure, cold water made the shadow of the surrounding acacias musical as ever.  She returned with a full pitcher; and the eagerness with which the patient drank told how much that draught had been desired.  The cardinal raised his head, but was quite unconscious; and all that long and fearful night had Giulietta to listen to the melancholy complainings of delirium.

The next day, she went to meet the gardener, who had waited, though, as he owned, in hopelessness of her coming.  How forcibly the sense of the city’s desolation rose before Giulietta, when she remembered that her ignorance of the hour proceeded from there being no one now to wind up the church-clocks!  Again she returned to the unconscious sufferer; but little needs it to dwell on the anxiety or the exertion in which the next three days were passed.  On the early morning of the last, as she watched over her uncle’s pillow, she perceived that there was a slight moisture on his skin, and that his sleep was sound and untroubled.  His slumbers were long and refreshing; and when he awoke it was with perfect consciousness.  Dreading the effect of agitation, Giulietta drew her veil over her face, and to his inquiry of “was any one there?” she answered in a low and feigned voice.

“I am faint and want food; but who, daughter, are you, who thus venture into the chamber of sickness and death?”

“A stranger; but one whose vow is atonement.”

“Giulietta!” exclaimed the cardinal, and the next moment she was at his side; and both wept the sweetest tears ever shed by affection and forgiveness.  Eagerly she prepared for him a small portion of food, and then, exerting the authority of a nurse, forbade all further discourse, and, soon exhausted, he slept again.

The cool shadows of the coming evening fell on the casement, when Giulietta first ventured to propose that she should send a letter by the gardener to Lorenzo, and desire that a litter might be sent to convey her uncle to their villa.

“My sweet child, do with me as you will,” said the cardinal; “take me even to the house of a Carrara.”

“And nowhere could you be so welcome,” said a stranger entering, and Giulietta, springing from her knees, found herself in the arms of her husband.  “I knew, Giulietta, I should find you here, though your letter told me but of prayer and pilgrimage.”