the dying, to cultivate the vine with his own hands; content with everything, in fine; even with his servant, an ugly old maid of about forty, at whose discretion he ate, drank, and dressed himself most resignedly, without exchanging more than a dozen words with her throughout the year.
"If I send her away," he said to himself, as he passed between the high hedges of the lane that led up from the main road to St. Luke, "it will damage and dishonor her. I cannot conscientiously do it, because I am sure that it is n't true. And with that Moro, of all men!"
The clock in the bell-tower struck eleven. Don Rocco began to think of his sermon, of which only three-quarters was written, and he rushed down from the church square to the door which led into his courtyard under the bell-tower at the end of a steep and stony lane. As he opened the gate and passed across the yard he was brought suddenly to a standstill. A faint light was shining from the windows of his sitting-room, the former refectory of the monks, on the lower floor.
Don Rocco had left at four o'clock to pay his visit to the Countess Carlotta, and had not returned in the meanwhile. He could not have left the lamps lighted. Therefore Lucia must have returned before the time she had set; that must certainly be the reason. He did not fatigue
