people off,
and you can fetch a sheet from the house to cover it."

"Oh, God!" she said, "when will they come?"

He slightly shrugged his shoulders.

"I do not know. We have sent to tell them. In a few minutes, perhaps,
or in two hours, three hours."

"And we must leave her here?"

"Yes, signorina."

"I will get the sheet."

He helped her to rise from her knees. Looking down she saw a stain of
blood on her skirt, and she clung to his arm for a moment, swaying as
though she would fall. There was a murmur among the people of pity and
sympathy. "_Poveretta! Che disgrazia!_"

"_Coraggio!_" the _carabiniere_ said gently.

Up again, up all the dark stairs, wondering if the others knew and
were afraid to come down, wondering if there had been much pain,
wondering if it was not all a dreadful dream from which she must wake
presently. They knew.

The younger girl met her cousin at the door; Maria had fainted, and
_la zia_ was hysterical; as to Orazio, he was sitting on the sofa
crying, with his mean, mouse-coloured head buried in the cushions.

"I looked out of your bedroom window as I could not get into her
room," whispered Carmela. "Oh, Olive, what shall we do?"

"I am going to take down a sheet as they will not let us bring her in.
You can come with me, and we will stay beside her and say prayers."

"Yes, yes. Oh, Olive, that is a good idea."

The two came out into the street together and spread the white linen
covering carefully over the stark body before they knelt, one on each
side. Of the thousands who had filled the Piazzale at sunset hundreds
came now to see them mourning the broken thing that lay between.
Olive was aware of many faces, of the murmuring of a great crowd, and
shame was added to the horror that held her fast. She folded her hands
and tried to keep her eyes fixed upon them. Then she began to pray
aloud.

"_Pater noster, qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum--_"

The clear voice was tremulous at first, but it gathered strength as it
went on, and Carmela said the words too. The men in the crowd
uncovered, and the women crossed themselves.

Rain was falling now, slowly at first and in heavy drops that splashed
upon the stones, and there was a threatening sound--a rumbling of
thunder--away in the south.

Olive knew no more prayers in Latin, but her cousin began the
Miserere.

"_Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam, et secundum
multitudinem miserationum tuarum,