m flap about his
ears. He groped for the box.

[Illustration: "Sor Tommaso was lying motionless."--Vol. I., p. 78.]

Just then the doctor heard light footsteps coming down the path behind
him. He called out, warning that he was in the way.

"O-e, gently, you know!" he cried. "An apoplexy on the wind!" he added
vehemently, as his head and hands became entangled more and more in the
folds of his cloak.

"And another on you!" answered a woman's voice, speaking low through
clenched teeth.

In the darkness a hand rose and fell with something in it, three times
in quick succession. A man's low cry of pain was stifled in folds of
broadcloth. The same light footsteps were heard for a moment again in
the narrow, winding way, and Sor Tommaso was lying motionless on his
face across his box, with his cloak over his head. The gusty south wind
blew up and down between the dark walls, bearing now and then a few
withered vine leaves and wisps of straw with it; and the night grew
darker still, and no one passed that way for a long time.

CHAPTER V.

WHEN Angus Dalrymple had finished his supper, he produced a book and sat
reading by the light of the wicks of the three brass lamps. Annetta had
taken away the things and had not come back again. Gigetto strolled in
and took his guitar from the peg on the wall, and idled about the room,
tuning it and humming to himself. He was a tall young fellow with a
woman's face and beautiful velvet-like eyes, as handsome and idle a
youth as you might meet in Subiaco on a summer's feast-day. He exchanged
a word of greeting with Dalrymple, and, seeing that the place was
otherwise deserted, he at last slung his guitar over his shoulder,
pulled his broad black felt hat over his eyes, and strolled out through
the half-open door, presumably in search of amusement. Gigetto's chief
virtue was his perfectly childlike and unaffected taste for amusing
himself, on the whole very innocently, whenever he got a chance. It was
natural that he and the Scotchman should not care for one another's
society. Dalrymple looked after him for a moment and then went back to
his book. A big glass measure of wine stood beside him not half empty,
and his glass was full.

He was making a strong effort to concentrate his attention upon the
learned treatise, which formed a part of the little library he had
brought with him. But Annetta's idle talk about the nuns, and especially
about Maria Addolorata and her singing,