“‘I came to burn these before the Madonna—the door was open and I walked in.’
“He lifted the lantern and scanned my face.
“‘You are the man who was here this morning. Did you get down on your knees as I told you?’
“‘Yes, holy father.’
“‘Get down again while I close the church. You can light your candles by the lantern,’ and he laid it on the stone pavement beside me and moved off into the gloom.
“I did everything he bade me—never was there a more devout worshipper—handed him back his lantern, and made my way out.
“At the end of the town the ragged man thrust his head over a low wall. He seemed greatly relieved, and picking up the bucket, we two started on a run for my lodgings. Before I went to bed that night he had mixed up the dry plaster in his bucket and taken the cast. He wanted to keep the matrix, but I wouldn’t have it. I did not want his dirty fingers feeling around her lovely face, and so I paid him his blood money and pounded the mould out of shape. The next morning I left Ravenna for Paris.
“You see now, messieurs, what a disreputable person I am.” Here he rose from his seat and walked back to the bas-relief. “And yet, most blessed of women”—and he raised his eyes as if in prayer—“I think I would do it all over again to have you where you could always listen to my sins.”