Della Scala entered softly, catching his breath painfully, the terror of religion strong within him.
On the purple hassock he knelt, with clasped hands, before the disfigured Christ, his heart rising to his lips in passionate prayer.
"Lord, thou understandest! Because I cannot deck thy altars with the gold of victory, thou wilt not forsake me, thou wilt have mercy on me and on her!"
And he stretched out his arms to the figure in an exaltation of trust and hope. "Even as I spare those who betray, so wilt thou spare her, O Christ!" He flung himself from his knees, face downward on the stones, in a tumult of hope and trust. Around the folds of Mastino's cloak lay the leaves of some dead roses that had fluttered at his movement, from forgotten wreaths, hanging brown against the wall.
Mastino rose, eager for some answer—some assent. But the dead Christ was silent. Mastino could see the cracking paint on the ribs, the tawdry gold of the halo, and he came still nearer in a strange desperation.
Half-hidden in shadow, two faces looked down on him—expressionless, stone, the angels on the wall.
Mastino looked from them to the crucifix, and his fervent faith sank, chilled.
"Stone," he murmured in his heart. "Stone and paint," and he noticed the empty lamps that should be blazing with eternal fire, and he cried aloud in bitterness. "Men keep those alight, and without them the eternal fire dies! Stone angels and a painted God! What help in them?" And he dropped again upon the floor. "The lamps burn bright on Visconti's altars, and his saints smile—for the painter limned them so."
He turned from the dismantled chapel and rushed up the three steps, half distraught.
In the outer chamber the sunlight dropped strong and golden, and Mastino shut the door of the dark and gloomy chapel behind him with a shudder.