"How old was she?"
One of the others answered, louder still:
"Three years and one month."
Then the fourth guard puffed twice more and started forward. Three years and one month! Maria's age! Franco, lying on his face, raised himself upon his elbows, clutching convulsively at the grass. The noise of the steps died away down below in Val Malghera.
"My God! My God!" he cried. Rising to his knees he repeated the terrible words in his heart, slowly, as if stupefied. "She was!" He wrung his hands, moaning once more: "My God! My God!"
After this he was hardly conscious of his movements. He went down to Oria with the vague sensation of having grown suddenly deaf, and his arm which clasped the doll trembled violently. Reaching the Madonna del Romit he crossed the town, and instead of going down by the Pomodoro stairway he followed the path that joins the short cut to Albogasio Superiore, and descended those same stairs that Barborin Pasotti had descended the day before the catastrophe. On the wall of the church he noticed a pale light which was reflected from the alcove-room. He neither paused beneath the window, nor called out, but stepped under the porch and tried the door.
It was open.
From the coolness of the night he passed into a heavy, close atmosphere, laden with the unfamiliar odour of burnt vinegar and incense. With difficulty he dragged himself up the stairs. Before him, on the landing, half-way up, light fell from above. On reaching the spot he saw that the light came from the alcove-room. He went on and presently stood in the corridor. The door of the room was wide open; there must be many candles burning in there. Mingled with the odour of incense he recognised the perfume of flowers, and began to tremble so violently that he could not go on. No sound reached him from the room. Suddenly he heard Luisa's voice, speaking tenderly, quietly: "Do you want me to go where you are going to-morrow, Maria? Do you want your mamma under the ground with you?" "Luisa! Luisa!" sobbed Franco, and they found themselves in each others' arms, on the threshold of their nuptial chamber, where the memory of their love was still alive, but where its sweet fruit lay dead.
"Come, dear. Come in," said she, and drew him forward. In the centre of the room, between four lighted candles, stood the little open coffin, in which lay poor Maria, under a mound of flowers, broken and wilted like herself. There were roses, heliotrope, jasmine, begonia, geraniums, verbena, flowering sprays of olea fragrans, and other blossomless sprays, all dark and shiny, from the carob tree she had loved so well, because it had been dear to papa. Flowers and leaves lay across her face as well.
Franco fell upon his knees sobbing: "My God! My God!" while Luisa chose two tiny rosebuds, placed them in Maria's little hand, and kissed her brow.