rumbled. "He can't do these things. It would
just be making him miserable to no purpose."

Now pitying voices and kisses mingled with the groans.

The engineer pressed his clenched fists upon the sofa, and remained
motionless for a moment, with bowed head. Then he rose, not without
difficulty, and said to the doctor:

"Must I go alone?"

"Do you wish me to be present?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Our efforts may be of no avail. I should not wish to force
her, but we must, at least, make an attempt."

The doctor dismissed the women who were still in the alcove-room; then,
standing in the doorway, he turned to the engineer and motioned to him
to come in.

"Donna Luisa," said he gently, "here is your uncle, who is coming to
beseech you----"

The old man staggered as he came forward, although his face was
composed. He advanced a few steps and then stopped. Luisa was seated
upon the bed with her dead baby in her arms, holding her tight, kissing
her face and neck, and uttering long, heart-rending groans as she
pressed her lips to the little body.

"Yes, yes, yes," she was saying, with almost a smile of tenderness in
her voice. "It is your uncle, dear, your uncle, who is coming to see his
little treasure, his little Maria, his little Missipipi, who loves him
so much! Yes, yes, yes!"

"Luisa," said Uncle Piero, "you must control yourself. Everything that
could be done has been done. Now come with me--don't remain here any
longer--come with me."

"Uncle, Uncle!" cried Luisa, in a voice full of tenderness but without
looking towards him, while she pressed the little dead body to her
breast and rocked backwards and forwards. "Come here! Come here to your
Maria! Come! Come to us, for you are our uncle, our dear uncle! No,
dear, no, dear! Our uncle will not forsake us."

Uncle Piero shuddered. His grief overwhelmed him for a moment, and
wrenched a sob from him.

"Let her rest!" he murmured in a stifled voice. She did not appear to
hear him, and continued: "We will go to our uncle, dear, you and I. Do
you want to go to him, Maria? Yes, yes! Let us go!" She slid from the
bed to the floor and went to Uncle Piero. Clutching her sweet, dead
burden to her breast with one arm, she threw the other about the old
man's neck, and whispered: "A kiss, a kiss, for your little Missipipi.
One kiss, only one!"

Uncle Piero bent down and kissed the little face, already sadly ravaged
by death, wetting it with two great tears.

"Look, l