"This is losing time," she said. "Send at once for Fra Pacifico. Until he comes, we know nothing."
When Fra Pacifico's rugged, mountainous figure entered Enrica's room, he seemed to fill it. First, he blessed the sweet girl lying before him with such a terrible mockery of life in her widely-opened eyes. His deep voice shook and his grave face twitched as he pronounced the "Beatus." Leaning over the bed, Fra Pacifico proceeded to examine her in silence. He uncovered her feet, and felt her heart, her hands, her forehead, lifting up the shining curls as he did so with a tender touch, and laying them out upon the pillow, as reverently as he would replace a relic.
Cavaliere Trenta stood beside him in breathless silence. Was it life or death? Looking into Fra Pacifico's motionless face, none could tell. Pipa was kneeling in a corner, running her rosary between her fingers; she was listening also, with mouth and eyes wide open.
"Her pulse still beats," Fra Pacifico said at last, betraying no outward emotion. "It beats, but very feebly. There is a little warmth about her heart."
"San Ricardo be thanked!" ejaculated Trenta, clasping his hands.
With the mention of his ancestral saint, the cavaliere's thoughts ran on to the Trenta chapel in the church of San Frediano, where they had all stood so lately together, Enrica blooming in health and beauty at his side. His sobs choked his voice.
"Shall I send to Lucca for a doctor?" Trenta asked, as soon as he could compose himself.
"As you please. Her condition is very precarious; nothing can be done, however, but to keep her warm. That I see has been attended to. She could swallow nothing, therefore no doctor could help her. With such a pulse, to bleed her would be madness. Her youth may save her. It is plain to me some shock or horror must have struck her down and paralyzed the vital powers. How could this have been?"
The priest stood over her, lost in thought, his bushy eyebrows knit; then he turned to Pipa.
"Has any thing happened, Pipa," he asked, "to account for this?"