ve when he heard two or three guards leave the farmhouse,
talking as they came towards him. He heard one of them say: "Is no one
going to stay here?" and another answered: "It is not necessary."

Four guards brushed past him without noticing him. They certainly had
no suspicions, for they were talking unconcernedly. One was saying that
a person may remain ten minutes under water without drowning; but
another maintained that five minutes is long enough to cause death. The
fourth passed him in silence, but hardly had he done so when he stopped.
Franco shuddered upon hearing him strike a match. He lit his pipe,
puffed at it two or three times, and then called out to his companions
in a loud voice, for they had already gone some way down the slope of
Val Malghera.

"How old was she?"

One of the others answered, louder still:

"Three years and one month."

Then the fourth guard puffed twice more and started forward. Three years
and one month! Maria's age! Franco, lying on his face, raised himself
upon his elbows, clutching convulsively at the grass. The noise of the
steps died away down below in Val Malghera.

"My God! My God!" he cried. Rising to his knees he repeated the terrible
words in his heart, slowly, as if stupefied. "_She was!_" He wrung his
hands, moaning once more: "My God! My God!"

After this he was hardly conscious of his movements. He went down to
Oria with the vague sensation of having grown suddenly deaf, and his arm
which clasped the doll trembled violently. Reaching the Madonna del
Romit he crossed the town, and instead of going down by the Pomodoro
stairway he followed the path that joins the short cut to Albogasio
Superiore, and descended those same stairs that Barborin Pasotti had
descended the day before the catastrophe. On the wall of the church he
noticed a pale light which was reflected from the alcove-room. He
neither paused beneath the window, nor called out, but stepped under the
porch and tried the door.

It was open.

From the coolness of the night he passed into a heavy, close atmosphere,
laden with the unfamiliar odour of burnt vinegar and incense. With
difficulty he dragged himself up the stairs. Before him, on the landing,
half-way up, light fell from above. On reaching the spot he saw that the
light came from the alcove-room. He went on and presently stood in the
corridor. The door of the room was wide open; there must be many candles
burning in there. Mingled with the odour o