Before him stood the shrunken form of Fra Girolamo.
With a deep sigh, he returned to reality.
"How fares my father?" he asked quickly, his memory stirred by the sombre eyes that met his own.
"Requiescat in pace!" said the monk with bowed head.
Francesco sank back upon his cushions and hid his face in his arms. The monk heard him sob and, for a moment, his frame seemed to shake as with convulsions. At last he raised himself with an effort.
"Conduct me to him!" he then said to the friar, who preceded him in silence to the death-chamber.
The rays of the morning sun shone upon the face of Gregorio Villani and imbued the features with a look of peace such as the living had not worn for many a day. The monks had placed his body on a bier, on each side of which two tall wax tapers burned in their sconces.
Francesco knelt down by the side of the bier, burying his head in his hands, while the monk retreated into a remote corner of the room.
When he rose at last, the watcher saw all the young life go out of his face, which suddenly grew old and cold. Light and color seemed simultaneously to depart from eyes and lips, and his limbs seemed hardly able to sustain him upright. After a pause he dared not break, for dread of revealing his sudden feeling, the youth's lifeless voice was raised in the dreary monotone of questioning.