sharpened; and having done, he gathered up what was left, and lay at her
feet with his eyes fixed upon an old grey stone. She, too, sat brooding.
The endless babble and noise of the water had hardened the sense of its
being a life in that solitude. The floating of a hawk overhead scarce
had the character of an animated thing. Angelo turned round to look at
her, and looking upward as he lay, his sight was smitten by spots of
blood upon one of her torn white feet, that was but half-nestled in the
folds of her dress. Bending his head down, like a bird beaking at prey,
he kissed the foot passionately. Vittoria's eyelids ran up; a chord
seemed to snap within her ears: she stole the shamed foot into
concealment, and throbbed, but not fearfully, for Angelo's forehead was
on the earth. Clumps of grass, and sharp flint-dust stuck between his
fists, which were thrust out stiff on either side of him. She heard him
groan heavily. When he raised his face, it was white as madness. Her
womanly nature did not shrink from caressing it with a touch of soothing
hands.

She chanced to say, 'I am your sister.'

'No, by God! you are not my sister,' cried the young man. 'She died
without a stain of blood; a lily from head to foot, and went into the
vault so. Our mother will see that. She will kiss the girl in heaven
and see that.' He rose, crying louder: 'Are there echoes here?' But his
voice beat against the rocks undoubted.

She saw that a frenzy had seized him. He looked with eyes drained of
human objects; standing square, with stiff half-dropped arms, and an
intense melody of wretchedness in his voice.

'Rinaldo, Rinaldo!' he shouted: 'Clelia!--no answer from man or ghost.