the
wounded man's sleep was unmistakably lighter. Sister Giovanna drew
back noiselessly from the bedside and carried her chair to the corner
where the little table stood, and sat down to wait again. It might be
bad for him to wake and see some one quite near him, looking into his
face.

At that moment the door opened quietly and the Mother Superior stood
on the threshold, looking preternaturally white, even for her. Sister
Giovanna rose at once and went to meet her. They exchanged a few words
in a scarcely audible whisper. The Mother had come in person to take
the nun's place for a while, judging that it would not be well if
Giovanni wakened and found himself alone with her.

The Sister went to her cell, where she had not been since the
explosion on the previous evening. The brick floor was strewn with
broken glass and was damp with the fine rain, driven through the
lattice by the southwest wind during the night. Even the rush-bottomed
chair was all wet, and the edge of the white counterpane on the little
bed. It was all very desolate.

CHAPTER XVIII

Giovanni opened his eyes at last, looked at the ceiling for a few
moments, and then closed them again. Plain white ceilings are very
much alike, and for all he could see as he looked up he was at home in
his own bed, at dawn, and there was plenty of time for another nap. He
felt unaccountably heavy, too, though not exactly sleepy, and it would
be pleasant to feel himself going off into unconsciousness again for a
while, knowing that there was no hurry.

But his eyes had not been shut long before he became aware that he was
in a strange place. He could not sleep again because an unfamiliar
odour of iodoform irritated his nostrils; he missed something, too,
either some noise outside to which he was used or some step near him.
In the little house at Monteverde he could always hear his orderly
cleaning the stable early in the morning; he grew suddenly uneasy and
tried to turn in his bed, and instead of the noise of broom and bucket
and sousing, he heard the indescribably soft sound of felt shoes on
tiles as the Mother Superior came to his side.

Then, in a flash, he remembered everything, up to the time when he had
been hurt, and after the moment when he had at first come to himself
in the room where he now was. His eyes opened again, and he saw and
recognised the Mother Superior, whom he had often seen and spoken with
during his brother's stay in the hospital.