"
Jeanne pressed her hands to her eyes, and answered "No" in a smothered
tone. It seemed to her she was whirling in the vortex of such agonising
dreams as accompany a raging fever, Piero had ceased speaking. Two or
three minutes slipped by. She withdrew her hands from her tearful eyes,
and fixed her gaze upon the cross, which shone there in front of
her, beyond the pointed arches, against the dark phantoms of ancient
paintings. She murmured:
"Do you know that Don Giuseppe Flores is dead?"
Silence.
Jeanne turned her head. The church was empty.
CHAPTER V
THE SAINT
I
The moon had already set, and in the wind of late evening the
Anio discoursed, now noisily, now softly, as one who in animated
conversation, from time to time, reminds his interlocutor of something
which others must not hear. Perhaps the only person who, in all the
lovely shell in which Subiaco lies, was listening to this discourse, was
Giovanni Selva. Seated on the terrace, near the parapet, on which he
rested his elbows, he was gazing silently into the sounding darkness.
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