In the great silence two sounds broke the stillness from time to time;
the deep satisfied grunt of a pig turning his fattest side to the cobble
stones as he slept--and the long, low wail of a woman dying in great
pain.

The little room was very dark. A single wick burned in the boat-shaped
cup of the tall earthenware lamp, and there was little oil left in the
small receptacle. On the high trestle bed, upon the thinnest of straw
mattresses, decently covered with a coarse brown blanket, lay a pale
woman, emaciated to a degree hardly credible. A clean white handkerchief
was bound round her brow and covered her head, only a scanty lock or two
of fair hair escaping at the side of her face. The features were calm
and resigned, but when the pain of the death agony seized upon her the
thin lips parted and deep lines of suffering appeared about the mouth;
She seemed to struggle as best she could, but the low, quavering cry
would not be stifled--lower and more trembling each time it was renewed.

An old barefooted friar with a kindly eye and a flowing grey beard stood
beside her. He had done what he could to comfort her and was going away.
But she feebly begged him to stay a little longer. In an interval, while
she had no pain, she spoke to her boys.

"Ruggiero--Sebastiano--dear sons--you could not save me, and I am going.
God bless you. Our Lady help you--remember--you are Children of the
King--remember--ah."

She sighed heavily and her jaw fell as another sort of pallor spread
suddenly over her face. Poor Carmela was dead at last, after weeks of
sickness, worked to death, as the neighbours said, by Pietro Casale and