fore the heap of foliage, broke off an arbutus branch,
and cast it on the pile.

"Orso," she said, "this is where your father died. Let us pray for his
soul!"

And she knelt down. Orso instantly followed her example. At that moment
the village church-bell tolled slowly for a man who had died during the
preceding night. Orso burst into tears.

After a few minutes Colomba rose. Her eyes were dry, but her face was
eager. She hastily crossed herself with her thumb, after the fashion
generally adopted by her companions, to seal any solemn oath, then,
hurrying her brother with her, she took her way back to the village.
They re-entered their house in silence. Orso went up to his room. A
moment afterward Colomba followed him, carrying a small casket which she
set upon the table. Opening it, she drew out a shirt, covered with great
stains of blood.

"Here is your father's shirt, Orso!"

And she threw it across his knees. "Here is the lead that killed him!"
And she laid two blackened bullets on the shirt.

"Orso! Brother!" she cried, throwing herself into his arms and clasping
him desperately to her. "Orso, you will avenge him!"

In a sort of frenzy she kissed him, then kissed the shirt and the
bullets, and went out of the room, leaving her brother sitting on
his chair, as if he had been turned to stone. For some time Orso sat
motionless, not daring to put the terrible relics away. At last, with
an effort, he laid them back in their box, rushed to the opposite end
of his room, and threw himself on his bed, with his face turned to the
wall, and his head buried in his pillow, as though he were trying
to shut out the sight of some ghost. His sister's last words rang
unceasingly in his ears, like the words of an oracle, fatal, inevitable,
calling out to him for blood, and for innocent blood! I shall not
attempt to depict the unhappy young man's sensations, which were as
confused as those that overwhelm a madman's brain. For a long time he
lay in the same position, without daring to turn his head. At last he
got up, closed the lid of the casket, and rushed headlong out of the
house, into the open country, moving aimlessly forward, whither he knew
not.

By degrees, the fresh air did him good. He grew calmer, and began
to consider his position, and his means of escape from it, with some
composure. He did not, as my readers already know, suspect the Barricini
of the murder, but he did accuse them of having forged Agostini's
le