se he had brought, and his
face was very pale.

"Let me understand," he said at last. "Tista was on the ladder. The
ladder slipped, Paolo ran to catch it, and it fell on him. He is badly
hurt, but not dead; is that it, Gigia?"

Maria Luisa nodded in the midst of a fit of weeping.

"The surgeon has been, you say? Yes. And where is Paolo lying?"

"In Tista's room," sobbed his wife. "They are with him now."

Marzio stood still and hesitated. He was under the influence of the most
violent emotion, and his face betrayed something of what he felt. The
idea of Paolo's death had played a tremendous part in his thoughts
during the whole day, and he had firmly believed that he had got rid of
that idea, and was to realise in meeting his brother that it had all
been a dream. The news he now heard filled him with horror. It seemed as
if the intense wish for Paolo's death had in some way produced a
material result without his knowledge; it was as though he had killed
his brother by a thought--as though he had had a real share in his
death.

He could hardly bear to go and see the wounded man, so strong was the
impression that gained possession of him. His fancy called up pictures
of Paolo lying wounded in bed, and he dreaded to face the sight. He
turned away from the table and began to walk up and down the little
room. In a corner his foot struck against something--the drawing board
on which he had begun to sketch the night before. Marzio took it up and
brought it to the light. Maria Luisa stared at him sorrowfully, as
though reproaching him with indifference in the general calamity. But
Marzio looked intently at the drawing. It was only a sketch, but it was
very beautifully done. He saw that his ideal was still the same, and
that upon the piece of paper he had only reproduced the features he had
chiselled ten years ago, with an added beauty of expression, with just
those additions which to-day he had made upon the original. The moment
he was sure of the fact he laid aside the board and opened the wooden
case.

Maria Luisa, who was very far from guessing what an intimate connection
existed between the crucifix and Paolo in her husband's mind, looked on
with increasing astonishment as he took out the beautiful object and Bet
it upon the table in the light. But when she saw it her admiration
overcame her sorrow for one moment.

"_Dio mio!_ What a miracle!" she exclaimed.

"A miracle?" repeated her husband, with a strange expr