the hare-brained singer had
done much worse, even from a worldly point of view; and looking at it
from another, Cucurullo thought that the irreparable nature of the deed
made it more wicked, besides the fact that all the persons concerned
might lose their lives by it. He was a very simple person in some ways.
Under the circumstances it seemed necessary before all things to convert
moral wrong into moral right by the simple intervention of a priest and
a wedding ring, after which the question of civil right, as the law
would regard it, would take care of itself well enough.

In the grey dawn Cucurullo's large unshaven face emerged from the ample
folds of his cloak, and his mild blue eyes seemed to review the
situation by daylight as he looked from his master's half-muffled
figure to Ortensia's closed door, and then towards the window at the end
of the passage. Then he sat up cautiously and drew his heels under him,
and because his body was so short and so completely covered up, he
looked as if he had none at all, and as if his big head were lying in a
nest of brown cloth on a pair of folded legs. Then, from just below his
chin, an immensely long arm stole out quietly, and his hand drew up
Stradella's cloak which had slipped from his shoulder; for the morning
air was chilly, though the spring was far advanced. Any one, coming on
him suddenly as he sat there, would have been startled as at the sight
of a supernatural being, consisting of a head, legs, and arms, all
joined together without any body.

The dawn brightened to day, and all sorts of noises began to come up
from below, echoing through the staircase and long passages of the
house; a distant door was opened and shut, then some one seemed to be
dragging a heavy weight over a rough floor; far off, some one else
whistled a tune; and then, all at once, came the clatter of many horses'
feet on the cobble-stones in the yard.

Cucurullo sprang up and ran on tip-toe to the window, instantly fearing
the arrival of mounted pursuers; but he only saw the stablemen leading
out the post-horses to be watered and groomed. When he turned to come
back he saw that he had waked Stradella, who was sitting up, yawning
prodigiously, and rubbing his eyes like a sleepy boy. He raised his hand
to stop his man, and then got up without noise and joined him near the
window.

'What is it?' he asked in a whisper, not without some anxiety.

'Only the post-horses, sir, but I was afraid of so