ade him accursed
for all time.

When he at last arose and went out of the church doors his mind was made
up to the course that he would take: an immense calm had descended upon
the unrest of his soul.

The day was done, the sun had set, the scarlet flame of its after-glow
bathed all the rusty walls and dusty ground with colors of glory. The
crowd had dispersed; there was no sound in the deserted square except
the ripple of the water as it fell from the dolphins' mouths into the
marble basin. As he heard that sweet familiar murmur of the falling
stream, the tears rose in his eyes and blotted out the flame-like pomp
and beauty of the skies. Never again would he hear the water of the
Marca river rushing in cool autumn days past the poplar-stems and the
primrose-roots upon its mossy banks; never again would he hear in the
place of his birth the gray-green waves of Arno sweeping through the
canebrakes to the sea.

At three of the clock on the following day the judgment was given in the
court.

Generosa Fe was decreed guilty of the murder of her husband, and
sentenced to twenty years of solitary confinement. She dropped like a
stone when she heard the sentence, and was carried out from the court
insensible. Her lover, when he heard it, gave a roar of anguish like
that of some great beast in torment and dashed his head against the
wall, and struggled like a mad bull in the hands of the men who tried to
hold him. Gesualdo, waiting without on the head of the great staircase,
did not even change countenance: to him this bitterness, as of the
bitterness of death, had been long past; he had been long certain what
the verdict would be; and he had many hours before resolved on his own
part.

A great calm had come upon his soul, and his face had that tranquillity
which comes alone from a soul which is at peace within itself.

The sultry afternoon shed its yellow light on the brown and gray and
dusty town; the crowd poured out of the court-house, excited, contrite,
voluble, pushing and bawling at one another, ready to take the side of
the condemned creature now that she was the victim of the law. The
priest alone of them all did not move: he remained sitting on the
upright chair under a sculptured allegory of Justice and Equity which
was on the arch above his head, and with the golden light of sunset
falling down on him through the high casement above. He paid no heed to
the hurrying of the crowd, to the tramp of guards, to the