"Let us go," said she.
"Perhaps we should pray," Gilardoni observed without rising. "Perhaps we should ask the spirits if they confess Christ."
"No, no, no!" Luisa exclaimed in an undertone, at the same time protesting with a hostile gesture. The professor silently took up the candle.
On her way back to Oria Luisa went up to the gate of the cemetery. Resting her forehead against it she sent a stifled good-bye towards Maria's grave, then she went down the hill again. On reaching the church-place she crossed over to the parapet and gazed down upon the lake sleeping in the shadow. She stood there some time, letting her thoughts roam at will. Placing her elbows on the parapet, she leaned forward and rested her face upon her hands, still gazing at the water, the water that had taken Maria. Her thoughts were beginning to take a definite shape, not within her, but down there in the water. She contemplated this shape. To die, to end it all! She was familiar with the thought, she had seen it once before when gazing into the water thus, long ago, before the experiments with the professor began. After that it had disappeared. But now it had returned again. It was a sweet and merciful thought, full of rest, of self-surrender, and of peace. It was good to gaze upon it now that her faith in the spirits was gone also. To die, to end it all! On that former occasion the image of her old uncle had been strong in helping to dispel the fascination. Now it was not so strong. Since Maria's death Uncle Piero had lapsed into a state of almost complete silence which Luisa believed to be the beginning of the apathy of old age. She did not understand that in the old man's soul profound disapproval was mingled with grief, nor did she understand how great was his aversion to these daily and repeated visits to the cemetery, the flowers, the mysterious journeys to Casarico, and above all, how he regretted her complete abandonment of the church. If she had not been so engrossed in her dead child she might have understood her uncle better, at least on this last point, the church, for now the silent old man himself went to Mass oftener than before, his heart returning to the religion of his father and mother, which, heretofore, he had practised coldly, from habit, and out of respect for family traditions. It seemed to Luisa that he had grown very dull, and that if only his personal needs were attended to, he would be quite content. Cia was there to attend to his comforts, and the means that had sufficed for three would be more than sufficient for two. Luisa thought she saw the water rise a hand's breadth. And Franco? Franco would be in despair, would mourn for a few years, and then he would be happier than ever. Franco knew the secret of speedy consolation. The water seemed to rise another hand's breadth.
At the same moment in which she had approached the parapet, Franco, passing the church of S. Francesco di Paolo in Via di Po, had seen lights and heard the organ. He went in. Hardly had he said a short prayer when the one dominant thought took possession of him once more; the sound of the organ became the noise of trumpets and drums, the clash of arms; and while a hymn of peace was rising from the altar, he, in imagination, was furiously charging the enemy. Suddenly he saw before his mind's eye the image of Luisa, pale, and dressed in mourning. He began to think of her, to pray for her with intense fervour.
Then, standing there on the church-place of Oria, she turned cold and was filled with dread, while the tempting thought gradually vanished. She tried to recall it, but could not. The water subsided. An inward voice said to her: "What if the professor be mistaken? What if it be not true that the table answered first yes and then no? what if it be not true about the lying spirits?" She drew back from the parapet, and with slow steps, went up to her house.
She found her uncle in the kitchen sitting in the chimney-corner, the tongs in his hand, and his glass of milk beside him. Cia and Leu were sewing.
"Well," said Uncle Piero, "I have been to the Custom-House. The Receiver is in bed with the jaundice, but I spoke with the Sedentario."
"What about, uncle?"