the wish to strike was still present in his mind. He twisted his
lips into an ugly smile as he recalled the scene in every detail; but
the determination was different from the reality and more in accordance
with his feelings. He realised again that moment during which he had
held the sharp instrument over his brother's head, and the thought which
had then passed so rapidly through his brain recurred again with
increased clearness. He remembered that beneath the iron-bound box in
the corner there was a trap-door which descended to the unused cellar,
for his workshop had in former times been a wine-shop, and he had hired
the cellar with it. One sharp blow would have done the business. A few
quick movements and Paolo's body would have been thrown down the dark
steps beneath, the trap closed again, the safe replaced in its position.
It was eleven o'clock then, or thereabouts. He would have sent the
workmen to their dinner, and would have returned to the inner studio.
They would have supposed afterwards that Don Paolo had left the place
with him. He would have gone home and would have said that Paolo had
left him--or, no--he would have said that Paolo had not been there, for
some one might see him leave the workshop alone. In the night he would
have returned, his family thinking he had gone to meet his friends, as
he often did. When the streets were quiet he would have carried the body
away upon the hand-cart that stood in the entry of the outer room. It
was not far--scarcely three hundred yards, allowing for the turnings--to
the place where the Via Montella ends in a mud bank by the dark river. A
deserted neighbourhood, too--a turn to the left, the low trees of the
Piazza de' Branca, the dark, short, straight street to the water. At one
o'clock after midnight who was stirring? It would all have been so
simple, so terribly effectual.

And then there would have been no more Paolo, no more domestic
annoyances, no more of the priest's smooth-faced disapprobation and
perpetual opposition in the house. He would have soon brought Maria
Luisa and Lucia to reason. What could they do without the support of
Paolo? They were only women after all. As for Gianbattista, if once the
poisonous influence of Paolo were removed--and how surely
removed!--Marzio's lips twisted as though he were tasting the sourness
of failure, like an acid fruit--if once the priest were gone,
Gianbattista would come back to his old ways, to his old scorn of
pri