ted, and the result was
there manifest to the girl's eyes.

She held her breath, and remained at the door, determined not to move
until Marzio should have risen from his knees. To interrupt him at such
a moment would have been almost a sacrilege; it might produce the most
fatal results; it would be an intrusion upon the privacy of a repentant
man. She stood watching and waiting to see what would happen.

Presently Marzio moved. Lucia thought he was going to rise from his
knees, but she was surprised to see that he only changed the position of
the crucifix with one hand. He approached his head so near the lower
part of it that Lucia fancied he was in the act of pressing his lips
upon the crossed feet of the silver Christ. Then he drew back a little,
turned his head to one side, and touched the figure with his right hand.
It was evident, now, that he was no longer praying, but that something
about the workmanship had attracted his attention.

How natural, the girl said to herself, that this man, even in such a
supreme moment, should not forget his art--that, even in prayer, his
eyes should mechanically detect an error of the chisel, a flaw in the
metal, or some such detail familiar to his daily life. She did not think
the worse of him for it. He was an artist! The habit of his whole
existence could not cease to influence him--he could as soon have ceased
to breathe. Lucia watched him and felt something like love for her
father. Her sympathy was with him in both actions; in his silent prayer,
in the inner privacy of his working-room, as well as in the inherent
love of his art, from which he could not escape even when he was doing
something contrary to the whole tenor of his life. Lucia thought how Don
Paolo's face would light up when she should tell him of what she had
seen. Then she wondered, with a delicate sense of respect for her
father's secret feelings, whether she would have the right to tell any
one what she had accidentally seen through the half-closed door of the
studio.

Marzio moved again, and this time he rose to his feet and remained
standing, so that the crucifix was completely hidden from her view. She
knocked at the door. Her father turned suddenly round, and faced the
entrance, still hiding the crucifix by his figure.

"Who is it?" he asked in a tone that sounded as though he were startled.

"Lucia," answered the girl timidly. "May I come in, papa?"

"Wait a minute," he answered. She drew back, and