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I sprang from my gondola and held out my hand:

“Sit down, Loretta, and let me talk to you.”

She stopped, looked at me in a dazed sort of way, as if she was trying to focus my face so as to recall me to her memory, and said in a determined way:

“No, let me pass. It’s too late for all that, Signore. I am–“

“But wait until you hear me.”

“I will hear nothing until I find Francesco.”

“You must not go near him. Get into the gondola and let Luigi and me take you home.”

A dry laugh rose to her lips. “Home! There is no home any more. See! My ring is gone! Francesco is the one I want–now—NOW! He knows I am coming,–I sent him word. Don’t hold me, Signore,–don’t touch me!”

She was gone before I could stop her, her long, striding walk increasing almost to a run, her black shawl swaying about her limbs as she hurried toward her old home at the end of the quay. Luigi started after her, but I called him back. Nothing could be done until her fury, or her agony, had spent itself. These volcanoes are often short-lived. We looked after her until she had reached the door and had flung herself across the threshold. Then I sent Luigi for my easel and began work.

The events that have made the greatest impression upon me all my life have been those which have dropped out of the sky,–the unexpected, the incomprehensible,–the unnecessary–the fool things–the damnably idiotic things.

First we heard a cry that caused Luigi to drop canvas and easel, and sent us both flying down the quay toward the rookery. It came from Loretta’s mother;–she was out on the sidewalk tearing her hair; calling on God; uttering shriek after shriek. The quay and bridge were a mass of people–some looking with staring eyes, the children hugging their mothers’ skirts. Two brawny fishermen were clearing the way to the door. Luigi and I sprang in behind them, and entered the house.

On the stone floor of the room lay the body of Francesco, his head stretched back, one hand clutching the bosom of his shirt. Against the wall stood Loretta; not a quiver on her lips; ghastly white; calm,–the least excited person in the room.

“And you killed him!” I cried.

“Yes,–he thought I came to kiss him–I did, WITH THIS!” and she tossed a knife on the table.

The days that followed were gray days for Luigi and me. All the light and loveliness were gone from my canal.

They took Loretta to the prison next the Bridge of Sighs and locked her up in one of the mouldy cells below the water line–dark, dismal pockets where, in the old days, men died of terror.

Vittorio, Luigi, and I met there the next morning. I knew the chief officer, and he had promised me an interview. Vittorio was crying,–rubbing his knuckles in his eyes,–utterly broken up and exhausted. He and Luigi had spent the night together. An hour before, the two had stood at Francesco’s bedside in the hospital of San Paulo. Francesco was still alive, and with Father Garola bending over him had repeated his confession to them both. He was madly in love with her, he moaned, and had spread the report hoping that Vittorio would cast her off, and, having no other place to go, Loretta would come back to him. At this Vittorio broke into a rage and would have strangled the dying man had not the attendant interfered. All this I learned from Luigi as we waited for the official.

“This is a frightful ending to a happy life–” I began when the officer appeared. “Let them talk to each other for just a few moments. It can do no harm.”

The official shook his head. “It is against orders, Signore, I cannot. He can see her when she is brought up for examination.”

“They will both have lost their senses by that time,” I pleaded. “Can’t you think of some way? I have known her from a child. Perhaps an order from headquarters might be of some use.” We were standing, at the time, in a long corridor ending in a door protected by an iron grating. This led to the underground cells.