ew
seconds, as the circling swallows flew past the half-open window.

'So you refuse to undergo the operation?' Pieri said, after a long
pause. 'Is that your last word? Shall I go away and leave you to die?'

'How long will that take?' asked Giovanni calmly.

'Probably from four to ten days, according to circumstances,' replied
the surgeon.

'Say a week, more or less. Will it hurt much?'

'Not unless you have lockjaw, which is possible. If you do, you will
suffer.'

'Horribly,' said the Mother Superior, unconsciously covering her eyes
with one hand for a moment; she had seen men die of tetanus.

'You will give me anaesthetics,' Giovanni answered philosophically.
'Besides, I would rather bear pain for a day or two than go through
life a cripple with an empty sleeve!'

'It is deliberate suicide,' said the Mother Superior sadly.

'I incline to think so, too,' echoed the surgeon, 'though I believe
the priests do not exactly consider it so.'

Though he was half paralysed by his injury, Giovanni Severi smiled
grimly.

'It would be very amusing if I died with the priests on my side after
all,' he said, 'and against our good Mother Superior, too! You don't
know how kind she is, Doctor; she has sat up all night with me
herself!'

Pieri was surprised, and looked quietly at the nun, who immediately
rose and went to the window, pretending to arrange the blinds better.
But there are moments when the truth seems to reveal itself directly
to more than one person at the same time. The surgeon, whose
intuitions were almost feminine in their swift directness, guessed at
once why the Mother did not answer: not only she had not sat up with
Giovanni herself, but she had allowed Sister Giovanna to do so, and as
the patient had not wakened and recognised his nurse, it was not
desirable that he should now know the truth. As for Giovanni himself,
the certainty that came over him was more like 'thought-reading,' for
neither he himself nor any one else could have explained the steps of
reasoning by which he reached his conclusion. It was probably a mere
guess, which happened to be right, and was founded on a little anxious
shrinking of the Mother Superior's head and shoulders when she crossed
the room and went to the window, as if she had something to hide.
Giovanni saw it, and then his eyes met Pieri's for a moment, and each
was sure that the other knew.

'I need not ask you,' Giovanni said, 'whether you are absolutely sure
tha