nd in a moment.
The silver Christ, unsteadily propped in the position in which he had
just placed it, had fallen upon one side of the pad by its own weight.

Marzio's heart still beat desperately as he went back to the hole and
carefully reclosed the trap-door, dragging the heavy safe to its
position over the ring. Trembling violently, he sat down upon his stool
and wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead. Then, as he laid the
figure upon the cushion, he glanced uneasily behind him and at the
corner.

CHAPTER IX

When Don Paolo had shut the door of the studio and found himself once
more in the open street, he felt a strangely unpleasant sensation about
the heart, and for a few moments he was very pale. He had suffered a
shock, and in spite of his best efforts to explain away what had
occurred, he knew that he had been in danger. Any one who, being himself
defenceless, has suddenly seen a pistol pointed at him in earnest, or a
sharp weapon raised in the air to strike him, knows the feeling well
enough. Probably he has afterwards tried to reason upon what he felt in
that moment, and has failed to come to any conclusion except the very
simple one, that he was badly frightened. Hector was no coward, but he
let Achilles chase him three times round Troy before he could make up
his mind to stand and fight, and but for Athena he might have run even
further. And yet Hector was armed at all points for battle. He was badly
frightened, brave man as he was.

But when the first impression was gone, and Paolo was walking quickly
in the direction of the palace where the Cardinal lived, he stoutly
denied to himself that Marzio had meant to harm him. In the first place,
he could find no adequate reason for such an attempt upon his life. It
was true that his relations with his brother had not been very amicable
for some time; but between quarrelling and doing murder, Paolo saw a
gulf too wide to be easily overstepped, even by such a person as Marzio.
Then, too, the good man was unwilling to suspect any one of bad
intentions, still less of meditating a crime. This consideration,
however, was not, logically speaking, in Marzio's favour; for since
Paolo was less suspicious than other men, it must necessarily have
needed a severe shock to shake his faith in his brother's innocence. He
had seem the weapon in the air, and had seen also the murderous look in
the artist's eyes.

"I had better not think anything more about it,"