"Since it is
nothing, let us have a baiocco's worth of acquavita, and let us go
away."

So they turned into the dirty little coffee shop to get their pennyworth
of spirits. Meanwhile Dalrymple was washing and binding up his friend's
wounds. Sor Tommaso groaned and winced under every touch, and the
Scotchman, with dry gentleness, did his best to reassure him. Stefanone
looked on in silence for some time, helping Dalrymple when he was
needed. The doctor's servant-woman, a somewhat grimy peasant, was
sitting on the stairs, sobbing loudly.

"It is useless," moaned Sor Tommaso. "I am dead."

"I may be mistaken," answered Dalrymple, "but I think not."

And he continued his operations with a sure hand, greatly to the
admiration of Stefanone, who had often seen knife-wounds dressed.
Gradually Sor Tommaso became more calm. His face, from having been
normally of a bright red, was now very pale, and his watery blue eyes
blinked at the light helplessly like a kitten's, as he lay still on his
pillow. Stefanone went away to his occupations at last, and Dalrymple,
having cleared away the litter of unused bandages and lint, and set
things in order, sat down by the bedside to keep his patient company for
a while. He was really somewhat anxious lest the wounds should have
taken cold.

"If I get well, it will be a miracle," said Sor Tommaso, feebly. "I must
think of my soul."

"By all means," answered the Scotchman. "It can do your soul no harm,
and contemplation rests the body."

"You Protestants have not human sentiment," observed the Italian, moving
his head slowly on the pillow. "But I also think of the abbess. I was
to have gone there early this morning. She will also die. We shall both
die."

Dalrymple crossed one leg over the other, and looked quietly at the
doctor.

"Sor Tommaso," he said, "there is no other physician in Subiaco. I am a
doctor, properly licensed to practise. It is evidently my duty to take
care of your patients while you are ill."

"Mercy!" cried Sor Tommaso, with sudden energy, and opening his eyes
very wide.

"Are you afraid that I shall kill them," asked Dalrymple, with a smile.

"Who knows? A foreigner! And the people say that you have converse with
the devil. But the common people are ignorant."

"Very."

"And as for the convent--a Protestant--for the abbess! They would rather
die. Figure to yourself what sort of a scandal there would be! A
Protestant in a convent, and then, in that conve