'I am Ippolito Saracinesca, a priest,' answered the young man.
At the name, she started, and her sad eyes opened wide. Then she saw the other two men standing in the road a little way off. Slowly, and with perfect grace, she rose from her low seat.
'And those two—there—who are they?' she asked.
'They are also Saracinesca,' said Ippolito. 'The one is my brother, the other is my cousin. We are three of the same name.'
He answered her question quite naturally, but he felt sure that she was mad. By this time San Giacinto was growing impatient, and he began to move a few steps nearer to call Ippolito. But the latter found it hard to turn away from the deep eyes and the pale face before him.
'Then there were three of you,' said Concetta, in a tone in which scorn sharpened grief. 'It is no wonder that you killed him between you.'
'Whom?' asked Ippolito, very much surprised at the new turn of her speech.
'Whom?' All at once there was something wild in her rising inflexion. 'You ask of me who it was whom you killed down there in the woods? Of me, Concetta? Of me, his betrothed? Of me, who prayed to your brother, there, that I might be let in, to wash my love's face with my tears? But if I had known to whom I was praying, there would have been two dead men lying there in the Chapel of Camaldoli—there would have been two black crosses in there, behind the gate—do you see? There it is! The last on the left. No one has died since, but if God were just, the next should be one of you, and the next another, and then another—ah, God! If I had something in these hands—'
She had pointed at Ferdinando's grave, throwing her arms backwards, while she kept her eyes on Ippolito. Now, with a gesture of the people, as she longed for a weapon, she thrust out her small white fists, tightly clenched, towards the priest's heart, then opened them suddenly, in a despairing way, and let her arms fall to her sides.