Nino tried in vain to quiet her.
"No," she cried, pushing him from her, as he sought to raise her from the ground, "I followed you on an evil path, Nino; the saint has warned us, and he will punish us. Did you not hear how he threw the door to behind us? Nino, Nino, there is but one atonement--that you acknowledge me as your true and honorable wife before this altar."
Nino faltered. The image of San Pancrazio stood before his own eyes, and he could not shut it out. He, too, felt a tremor in his very soul, for, however secure and sceptical he might represent himself, in the depths of his consciousness there always remained the inherited fear of the unknown--the secret dread of heaven and hell. In his heightened pulse-beats, which he could distinctly hear, this feeling knocked loudly at his heart.
A close, sultry air filled the chapel. Through the one little round window over the altar a dusky glimmer fell, scarce brighter than the surrounding darkness. Nino reached up and tried the door. He wanted to open it, to let in the fresh night air, to scare away the fantasies which were slowly surrounding his senses. But the door lay fast in bolt and hinge and would not yield to his straining. He sought the latch with groping fingers, and found that the key had been turned and drawn out.
"Santo Diavolo!" he cried, ice-cold shivers running through every limb. "The door is locked!"
"Locked, yes, locked," cried Carmela, springing from her knees, and throwing herself on the threshold. "I saw him, how he followed at our heels, and how he raised his hand with threatening gesture. Yes, I heard him, and I saw him, and it is he who has locked us in his sanctuary, that our deed may be expiated."
Thus the poor child raved in feverish terror. Nino listened without a word. What should he do? What would come of all this? It was no use to think of flight. The old stones lay fast one upon another, and fast lay the old oaken doors on their hinges. In the morning all Roccastretta would come to replace the saint on his pedestal, for he had sent the rain without a doubt. Nino could hear the big drops pattering against the window-panes. And they would find him here with Carmela. Alone with Carmela in the chapel! And then? When Don Cesare stepped across the threshold? Nino knew Don Cesare and what he had to expect from him. It would be a battle for life and death, and all the men and women, Father Atanasio and the Syndic--every one would be on the side of Carmela's injured brother. Verily this was not the ending he had imagined for his love adventure when he tempted Carmela to follow him to his quiet Casina.
Ever blacker lowered the night, heavier and closer hung the clouds, thicker poured the rain. And as Nino heard the rush of heavy drops on the roof, and felt the moist breath of the drinking earth which came in through the little window, it seemed as if something broke within his heart, and a voice cried from the depths: "Every drop of rain that falls from heaven proclaims the power of the saint, and can you doubt the miracle which he has worked on you?"
Next morning, when the procession, led by Father Atanasio, stopped, with the mutilated image of the patron saint, before his chapel, and when the key entered in the lock, and the lock creaked, and the door, swollen by moisture, turned slowly and heavily on its hinges, there was one there whose heart beat violently, and whose blood boiled at fever heat, one whose hand lay carelessly as if toying but none the less fast and grimly on the handle of his knife--for who could foresee what was going to happen? But Don Cesare breathed more freely, and let his knife go, and with difficulty retained composure enough to play out the rôle he had assumed, when the padre stood still on the threshold with a cry of astonishment, while out of the dusk from the foot of the altar two figures advanced, kneeled with clasped hands before the good father, and amid the astounded silence that fell upon them all, Nino's voice was heard saying humbly:
"Saint Pancras has wrought a miracle not on our fields and gardens alone; upon me and upon Carmela in the last night another has fallen. How it happened, ask me not. The saint led us into this chapel with his own hand, with his own hand closed the door and took away the key. At the foot of his altar we have pledged each other our wedded troth, and at the foot of his altar we beg you, Father Atanasio, to bless the banns."