iting for her below.

The signora gave her a tumbler half full of _vin santo_, which she kept
for special occasions--a strong, delicious wine with the perfume of a
whole garden in it. "Drink every drop," she commanded: "it will give you
courage. You had better be a little tipsy than fainting away. And put
this bottle into your pocket to drink when you have need on the way."

More dead than alive, Silvia was placed in the little old-fashioned
carriage that Matteo had hired to come to Rome in, and her brother took
his seat beside her. The Signora Fantini and her daughter leaned from
the window, kissing their hands to her and shaking their handkerchiefs
as long as she was in sight. And as long as she was in sight they saw
her pale face turned backward, looking at them. Then the tawny stone of
a church-corner hid her from their eyes for ever.

Who knows or can guess what that drive was? The two passed through
Frascati, and Matteo stopped to speak to an acquaintance there. They
drove around Monte Porzio, and Matteo stopped again, to buy a glass of
wine and some figs. He offered some to his sister, but she shook her
head.

"She is sleepy," her brother said to the man of whom he had bought.
"Give me another tumbler of wine: it isn't bad."

"It is the last barrel I have of the vintage of two years ago," the man
replied. "It was a good vintage. If the signorina would take a drop she
would sleep the better. Besides, the night is coming on and there is a
chill in the air."

Silvia opened her eyes and made the little horizontal motion with her
fore finger which in Italy means no.

"She will sleep well enough," Matteo said, and drove on.

Night was coming on, and they had no more towns to pass--only a bit more
of lonely level road and the lonely road that wound to and fro up the
mountain-side. At the best, they could not reach home before ten
o'clock. The road went to and fro--sometimes open, to give a view of the
Campagna and the Sabine Mountains, and Soracte swimming in a lustrous
dimness on the horizon; sometimes shut in closely by trees, that made it
almost black in spite of the moon. For the moon was low and gave but
little light, being but a crescent as yet. There was a shooting star now
and then, breaking out like a rocket with a trail of sparks or slipping
small and pallid across the sky.

One of these latter might have been poor Silvia's soul slipping away
from the earth. It went out there somewhere on the mountai