Gouache and many others had escaped death almost miraculously, for five minutes had not elapsed after they had started at the double-quick for the Porta San Paolo, when the building was blown up.  The news had of course been brought to them while they were repulsing the attack upon the gate, but it was not until many hours afterwards that a small detachment could safely be spared to return to their devastated quarters.  Gouache himself had been just in time to join his comrades, and with them had seen most of the fighting.  He now placed his men at proper distances along the street, and found leisure to reflect upon what had occurred.  He was hungry and thirsty, and grimy with gunpowder, but there was evidently no prospect of getting any refreshment.  The night, too, was growing cold, and he found it necessary to walk briskly about to keep himself warm.  At first he tramped backwards and forwards, some fifty paces each way, but growing weary of the monotonous exercise, he began to scramble about among the heaps of ruins.  His quick imagination called up the scene as it must have looked at the moment of the explosion, and then reverted with a sharp pang to the thought of his poor comrades-in-arms who lay crushed to death many feet below the stones on which he trod.

Suddenly, as he leaned against a huge block, absorbed in his thoughts, the low wailing of a woman’s voice reached his ears.  The sound proceeded apparently from no great distance, but the tone was very soft and low.  Gradually, as he listened, he thought he distinguished words, but such words as he had not expected to hear, though they expressed his own feeling well enough.

“Requiem eternam dona eis!”

It was quite distinct, and the accents sounded strangely familiar.  He held his breath and strained every faculty to catch the sounds.

“Requiem sempiternam—­sempiternam—­sempiternam!” The despairing tones trembled at the third repetition, and then the voice broke into passionate sobbing.

Anastase did not wait for more.  At first he had half believed that what he heard was due to his imagination, but the sudden weeping left no doubt that it was real.  Cautiously he made his way amongst the ruins, until he stopped short in amazement not unmingled with horror.

In an angle where a part of the walls was still standing, a woman was on her knees, her hands stretched wildly out before her, her darkly-clad figure faintly revealed by the beams of the waning moon.  The covering had fallen back from her head upon her shoulders, and the struggling rays fell upon her beautiful features, marking their angelic outline with delicate light.  Still Anastase remained motionless, scarcely believing his eyes, and yet knowing that lovely face too well not to believe.  It was Donna Faustina Montevarchi who knelt there at midnight, alone, repeating the solemn words from the mass for the dead; it was for him that she wept, and he knew it.