ast seemed so. You did not see the gashes
in the lopped trees, the scars in the burned hill-side, the wounds in
the mule's loins, the blood-shot eyes of the working ox, the goitred
throat of the child rolling in the dust. Night, kindly friend of dreams,
cast her soft veil over all woes, and made the very dust seem as a
silvered highway to a throne for God.

He went now through the balmy air, the rustling canes, the low-hanging
boughs of the fruit-laden peach-trees, and the sheaves of cut corn
leaning one up against another under the hives. He followed the course
of the water, a shallow thread at this season, glistening under the moon
in its bed of shingle and sand. He passed the mill-house perforce on his
homeward way, he saw the place of the weir made visible even in the dark
by the lanterns which swung on a cord stretched from one bank to
another, to entice any such fish as there might still be in the
shallows. The mill stood down into the water, a strong place, built in
olden days; the great black wheels were perforce at rest; the mules
champed and chafed in their stalls, inactive, like the mill; for the
next three months there would be nothing to do unless a storm came and
brought a freshet from the hills. The miller would have the more leisure
to nurse his wrongs, thought Gesualdo; and his heart was troubled: he
had never met with these woes of the passions; they oppressed and
alarmed him.

As he passed the low mill windows, protected from thieves by their iron
gratings, he could see the interior, lighted as it was by the flame of
oil lamps, and through the open lattices the voices, raised high in
stormy quarrel, seemed to smite the holy stillness of the night like a
blow. The figure of Generosa stood out against the light which shone
behind her; she was in a paroxysm of rage; her eyes flashed like the
lightnings of the hills, and her beautiful arms were tossed above her
head in impassioned imprecation. Tasso Tassilo seemed for the moment to
crouch beneath this rain of flame-like words; his face, on which the
light shone full, was deformed with malignant and impotent fury, with
covetous and jealous desire: there was no need to hear her words to know
that she was taunting him with her love for Falko Melegari. Gesualdo was
a weak man and physically timid; but here he hesitated but one instant.
He lifted the latch of the house door and walked straightway into the
mill kitchen.

"In the name of Christ, be silent!" h