'Ho, there!' he cried roughly. 'Will you go or not?' He turned to Orsino. 'She has been there since two o'clock,' he explained. 'We heard her through the closed gate.'
'Let her alone,' said Orsino authoritatively. 'She is only a woman, and can do no harm; and she has a right to her mourning, God knows.'
'There will be a hundred before the sun has been up an hour, signore,' answered the soldier. 'The people will collect about her, for they will come out of curiosity, from many miles away. It will be better to get rid of them as fast as they come.'
'You might let that poor woman in,' suggested Orsino. 'After all, I have killed her lover—she has a right to see his body.'
'As you wish, signore,' answered the trooper, taking the empty pannikin.
Orsino got up and looked out again, as the man went away. The girl had risen to her feet, and stood looking up to the window. Her shawl had fallen back upon her shoulders, and disclosed a young and dishevelled but beautiful head, of the Greek type, though the eyes were somewhat long and almond-shaped. There was no colour in the olive-pale cheeks, and little in the parted lips; and the hand that gathered the shawl to the bosom was singularly white. The regular features were set in a tragic mask of grief, such as one very rarely sees in the modern world.
When she saw Orsino, she suddenly raised both hands to him, like a suppliant of old.
'They have killed him!' she cried. 'They have killed my bridegroom! Let me see him! let me kiss him! Are they Christians, and will not let me see him?'
'You shall see him,' answered Orsino. 'I will let you in myself.'