They stood there facing one another. From the kitchen came the sound of Lucrezia's cries. Hermione put her hands up to her ears.
"Please—please—oh, there should be a little silence here now!" she said.
For the first time there was a sound of something like despair in her voice.
"Let me come in, signora!" stammered the doctor. "Let me come in and examine him."
"He is dead."
"Well, but let me. I must!"
"Please come in," she said.
The doctor turned round to the fishermen.
"Go, one of you, and make that girl keep quiet," he said, angrily. "Take her away out of the house—directly! Do you hear? And the rest of you stay outside, and don't make a sound."
The fishermen slunk a little way back into the darkness, while Giuseppe, walking on the toes of his bare feet, and glancing nervously at the furniture and the pictures upon the walls, crossed the room and disappeared into the kitchen. Then the doctor laid down his cigar on a table and went into the bedroom whither Hermione had preceded him.