s had subsided; his
eyelids, which had been half open, had dropped and closed, so that he
seemed to be sleeping peacefully, ready to wake at the slightest sound.

Marzio stood and looked at him. This was the man he had hated through so
many years of boyhood and manhood--the man who had faced him and opposed
him at every step--who had stood up boldly before him in his own house
to defend what he believed to be right. This was Paolo, whom he had
nearly killed that morning. Marzio's right hand felt the iron tool in
the pocket of his blouse, and his fingers trembled as he touched it,
while his long arms twitched nervously from the shoulder to the elbow.
He took it out, looked at it, and at the sick man's face. He asked
himself whether he could think of using it as he had meant to, and then
he let it fall upon the bit of green drugget by the bedside.

That was Paolo--it would not need any sharpened weapon to kill him now.
A little pressure on the throat, a pillow held over his face for a few
moments, and it would all be over. And what for? To be pursued for ever
by that same white face? No. It was not worth while, it had never been
worth while, even were that all. But there was something else to be
considered. Paolo might now die of his accident, in his bed. There would
be no murder done in that case, no haunting horror of a presence, no
discovery to be feared, since there would have been no evil. Let him
die, if he was dying!

But that was not all either. What would it be when Paolo should be dead?
Well, he had his ideas, of course. They were mistaken ideas. Were they?
Perhaps, who could tell? But he was not a bad man, this Paolo. He had
never tried to wring money out of Marzio, as some people did. On the
contrary, Marzio still felt a sense of humiliation when he thought how
much he owed to the kindness of this man, his brother, lying here
injured to death, and powerless to help himself or to save himself.
Powerless? yes--utterly so. How easy it would be, after all, to press a
pillow on the unconscious face. There would probably not even be a
struggle. Who should save him, or who could know of it? And yet Marzio
did not want to do it, as he had wished to a few hours ago. As he looked
down on the pale head he realised that he did not want Paolo to die.
Standing on the sharp edge of the precipice where life ends and breaks
off, close upon the unfathomable depths of eternity, himself firmly
standing and fearing no fall, but