you are awake," said the earl.

"That's nice," said Miss O'Kelly; "run away home now, and get your
beauty-sleep."

VI

During the following week the cardinal was so occupied with his poor
that he nearly forgot his rich. He saw the yacht whenever he took his
barca at the molo, and once, when he was crossing the Rialto, he caught
a glimpse of Lady Nora and her aunt, coming up the canal in their
gondola.

As for the earl, he haunted St. Mark's. Many times each day he went to
the treasury only to find it locked. The sacristan could give him no
comfort. "Perhaps to-morrow, my lord," he would say when the earl put
his customary question; "it is the annual cleaning, and sometimes a
jewel needs resetting, an embroidery to be repaired--all this takes
time--perhaps to-morrow. Shall I uncover the Palo d'Oro, my Lord, or
light up the alabaster column; they are both very fine?" And the earl
would turn on his heel and leave the church, only to come back in an
hour to repeat his question and receive his answer.

One day the earl spoke out--"Tommaso," he said, "you are not a rich man,
I take it?"

"My lord," replied Tommaso, "I am inordinately poor. Are you about to
tempt me?"

The earl hesitated, blushed, and fumbled in his pocket. He drew out a
handful of notes.

"Take these," he said, "and open the treasury."

"Alas, my lord," said Tommaso, "my virtue is but a battered thing, but I
must keep it. I have no key."

The earl went out and wandered through the arcades. He came upon Lady
Nora and Miss O'Kelly. They were looking at Testolini's shop-windows.
Lady Nora greeted him with a nod--Miss O'Kelly with animation.

"I'm havin' a struggle with me conscience," she said.

So was the earl.

"Do ye see that buttherfly?" continued Miss O'Kelly, putting her finger
against the glass; "it's marked two hundred lire, and that's eight
pounds. I priced one in Dublin, just like it, and it was three hundred
pounds. They don't know the value of diamonds in Italy. I've ten pounds
that I got from Phelim yesterday, in a letther. He says there's been an
Englishman at the Kildare Club for three weeks, who thought he could
play piquet. Phelim is travellin' on the Continent. Now, the question in
me mind is, shall I pay Father Flynn the ten pounds I promised him, a
year ago Easter, or shall I buy the buttherfly? It would look illigant,
Nora, dear, with me blue bengaline."

Lady Nora laughed, "I am sure, Aunt Molly," she said, "that