little card-table had been covered with a damask napkin and laid out as
an altar. All the dainty articles of the dying woman's dressing-table,
her scent-flasks, rouge pots and puffs, were huddled together with
various medicine bottles on a chest of drawers at the back. It was two
o'clock in the afternoon and the sun was shining, so the curtains were
drawn and the shutters closed. In the darkened room the candles burned
like stars.

The ghostly viaticum being over, the priest and his assistants left the
house. But the pale, grinning shadow of death continued to stand by the
perfumed couch.

Roma had not been present at the offices, and presently the English
Sister came to say that the Countess wished to see her.

"It's perfectly miraculous," said the Sister. "She's like another
woman."

"Has she had her opiate lately?" said Roma, and the Sister answered that
she had.

Roma found her aunt in a kind of mystical transport. A great light of
joy, almost of pride, was shining in her face.

"All my pains are gone," she said. "All my sorrows and trials too. I
have laid them all on Christ, and now I am going to mount up with Him to
God."

Clearly she had no sense of her guilt towards Roma. She began to take a
high tone with her, the tone of a saint towards a sinner.

"You must conquer your worldly passions, Roma. You have been a sinner,
but you must not die a bad death. For instance, you are selfish. I am
sorry to say it, but you know you are. You must confess and dedicate
your life to fighting the sin in your sinful heart, and commend your
soul to His mercy who has washed me from all stain."

But the Countess's ethereal transports did not wholly eclipse her
worldly vanities when she proceeded to preparations for her funeral.

"Let there be a Requiem Mass, Roma. Everybody has it. It costs a little,
certainly, but we can't think of money in a case like this. And send for
the Raveggi Company to do the funeral pomps, and see they don't put me
on a tressel. I am a noble and have a right to be laid on the church
floor. See they bury me on high ground. The little Pincio is where the
best people are buried now, above the tomb of Duke Massimo."

Roma continued to say "Yes," and "Yes," and "Yes," though her very heart
felt sore.

Two hours afterwards the Countess was in her death agony. The tortured
body had prevailed over the rapturous soul, and she was calling for more
and more of the opiate. Everybody was odious to her