ed
and put in order, and looked very neat. Ortensia was reassured.

'And what is there downstairs?' she asked.

'A kitchen and a dining-room,' Gambardella answered. 'But I must be off
if I am to fetch the Maestro. We shall be here in half an hour at the
utmost.'

Just then a great bell not very far off tolled three strokes, then four,
then five, and then one, and an instant later it rang out in a peal.

'It is Ave Maria,' Gambardella said. 'The Benediction is over by this
time. You had better come down with me and hook the chain inside the
front door.'

Ortensia followed him down the stairs again, and he carried the lamp. As
he went she heard him hurriedly repeating the Angelus.

'"Angelus Domini nuntiavit,"' he began, quite audibly, but the words
that followed were said in a whisper.

Ortensia repeated the prayer to herself too, partly by force of habit,
no doubt, but partly because it was a comfort to say it with the
kind-hearted friend who had once more intervened to help her and her
husband in time of danger. Even the Bravo, who could say his prayers
uncommonly fast, had not finished when they reached the foot of the
stairs, and as Ortensia set the lamp on the corner of the yellow marble
table she distinctly heard him say the first words of the third
responsory.

'"And dwelt with us,"' she answered quietly and clearly.

He laid his hand on the lock of the hall door, and when he turned to her
his eyes met hers with a look she had never seen. Both repeated the
third Ave Maria aloud, while he gazed earnestly at her pure young face,
so sweetly framed in the soft folds of the veil. Then without waiting
for the final prayer he opened the door, and as he shut it after him she
heard him say something aloud, but the words were so strange and
unexpected that she repeated them to herself twice while she was hooking
the chain before she quite realised what they were, and understood them.

'"And Judas went out and hanged himself."'

That was what he had said as he went away.

CHAPTER XXI

When Stradella came down from the organ-loft after the Benediction he
was in haste to reach the sacristy before any of the choristers, as he
did not mean to keep Ortensia waiting a moment longer than necessary.
But to his annoyance a number of his admiring acquaintances had already
made their way to that side; and this was the more easy, because the
throng of common people who had pressed upon the fashionable company had