d in their veins; such creatures die in
anticipating death. Others under the stress of that grim passion have
their wits preternaturally sharpened. The instinct of self-preservation
assumes command of all their senses, and urges them to swift and
feverish action.

I thank God with a full heart that to this latter class do I belong.
After one gelid moment, spent with eyes and mouth agape, my hands fallen
limp beside me and my hair bristling with affright, I became myself
again and never calmer than in that dread moment. I went to work with
superhuman swiftness. My cheeks may have been livid, my very lips
bloodless; but my hands were steady and my wits under full control.

Concealment--concealment for myself and her--was the thing that now
imported; and no sooner was the thought conceived than the means were
devised. Slender means were they, yet Heaven knows I was in no case
to be exacting, and since they were the best the place afforded I must
trust to them without demurring, and pray God that Messer Ramiro might
lack the wit to search. And with that fresh hope it came to me that
I must find a way so to dispose as to make him believe that to search
would be a futile waste of energy.

The odds against me lay in the little time at my disposal. Yet a little
time there was. The door was stout, and Messer Ramiro might take
no violent means of bursting it, lest the noise should arouse the
street--and I well could guess how little he would relish having lights
to shine upon this deed of night of his.

With what tools his sbirro was at work I could not say; but surely they
must be such as would leave me a few moments. Already the fellow had
begun. I could make out a soft crunching sound, as of steel biting into
wood. To act, then!

With movements swift as a cat's, and as silent, I went to work. Like
a ghost I glided round the coffin to the other side, where the lid was
lying. I took it up, and when for a moment I had deposited Madonna Paola
on the ground, I mounted the bench and gently but quickly set back that
lid as it had been. Next, I gathered up the cumbrous pall, and mounting
the bench once more I spread it across the coffin. This way and that I
pulled it, straightening it into the shape that it had worn when first I
had entered, and casting its folds into regular lines that would lend it
the appearance of having remained undisturbed.

And what time I toiled, the half of my mind intent upon my task, the
other half w