sted, "Our Father who art in Heaven," and would have gone on in
her unfortunately colourless voice, had not the Professor checked her
sharply. He applied the thermometer to Benedetto, who hardly noticed
what was being done. He was absorbed in the effort to detach from
his innermost self the images of those tempting figures, and of their
horrible words; in the effort to cast himself, soul and conscience,
upon the Father's breast, to cling to Him with his whole being, to
lose himself in the Father. Slowly the images began to give way, their
assaults becoming each time more brief, less violent. His face was so
transfigured in this mystic tension of the soul, that Mayda, watching
him, was as one turned to stone, and forgot to look at his watch, until
the features, which had been contracted in that anxious prayer, finally
began to relax into a peaceful composure. Then he remembered, and
removed the thermometer. The sister, standing behind him, held up the
electric lamp, trying to see also. He could not at first distinguish the
points, and during those few seconds of fixed attention neither of them
noticed that the invalid had turned upon his side, and was looking
at the Professor. At last Mayda gave the instrument a shake. How many
points had it marked? The sister did not dare to inquire, and the
Professor's face was impenetrable. Without his noticing the motion, the
sick man stretched out his hand and touched him gently on the arm, Mayda
turned towards him, and read in his smiling eyes the question, "Well?"
He did not speak, but answered with that undulating movement of open
hands which meant neither good, nor bad. Then he sat down beside the
bed, still silent, impenetrable, looking at Benedetto, who had sunk upon
his back once more, and no longer looked at him, but was gazing at the
specks of light in the immense expanse of blue.

"Professor," he said, "what time is it?"

"Three o'clock."

"At five you must send for the priest from Bocca della Verita."

"Very well."

"Will it be too late?"

This last question the Professor answered with a loud and ringing "No."
After a moment of silence he added, in a lower tone, another "no" as
if in answer to his own thoughts. The thermometer had gone up to
thirty-seven point five; more than one degree since the evening before.
Should the fever increase, should there be danger of delirium, he would
send at once, to Bocca della Verita, even before five o'clock. It
did not seem prob