eant to her. She rushed into her own room and threw herself
out of the window. Ah, you should have seen the dark blood oozing
through the fine soft curls! She lay dead in the street for hours
before they took her away."

"_Santissimo Dio!_ Is this true?"

"Yes."

"Gemma--I never knew it--" His face was greatly altered now, and he
had to moisten his lips before he could speak.

"I could have forgiven that," Edna said tremulously after a while.
"But not yesterday. Your kisses are too cheap, Filippo."

"Oh," he said hoarsely. "So Gemma's cousin saw that too. It was
nothing, meant nothing. Edna, if you can pardon the other, surely--"

"It was nothing; and it proved that Mamie is nothing, and that you are
nothing--to me. That is the end of the matter."

He winced now at the contempt underlying her quiet words, and when she
took off her ring and laid it on the table between them he picked it
up and flung it into the fire.

"I do not take things back," he said savagely.

When he had left the room Edna began to cry again. "I believe he is
suffering now, but not for me. Would he care if I killed myself? I
guess not. I am not pretty, only my hands, and hands don't count."

Olive tried to comfort her.

"Poppa shall take me away right now. I have had enough of Europe, and
so I shall tell him when he comes in. Must you go now? Well, good-bye,
my dear, and thank you. You are white all through, and I am glad you
have acted as you have, though it hurts now. If ever I marry it shall
be an American ... but I was real fond of Filippo."

CHAPTER V

Cardinal Jacopo of Portugal was buried in a side chapel of the church
of San Miniato al Monte, and his counterfeit presentment, wrought in
stone, lies on the tomb Rossellino made for him. Rossellino, who loved
to carve garlands of acanthus and small sweet _amorini_, has conferred
immortality on some of the men whose tombs he adorned in
_basso-rilievo_, and they are remembered because of him; but the
cardinal has another claim. He is beautiful in himself as he rests
there, his young face set in the peace that passes all understanding,
his thin hands folded on his breast.

Mourners were kneeling in the central aisles of the church, and women
carrying wreaths passed through it on their way to the Campo Santo
beyond, for this was the day of All Souls, and there were fresh
flowers on the new graves, and little black lamps were lit on those
that were grass grown and decked on