It was this same teacher that led her to understand Ernest’s friends in Florence, when she had found them, and that led them to understand her.  Ernest was in much the same state as when they wrote.  He was growing stronger, but his mind seemed to wander.

“And do you know, dear lady,” said Monica, Carlo’s mother, “that we fear he has been starving,—­starving, too, when we, his friends, had plenty, and would have been glad to give him?  He was to have been paid for his work when he had finished it; and he had given up his other work for his master, that be might complete his own statue.  Oh, you should see that!  He is putting it into the marble,—­or taking it out, rather, for it has life almost, and springs from the stone.”

“But Ernest?” asked Violet.

“Well, then, just for want of money, he was starving,—­so the doctor says, now.  I suppose he was too proud to write home for money, and his wages had stopped.  And he was too proud to eat our bread.  That was hard of him.  Just the poor food that we have, to think he should have been too proud to let us give it him!—­that was not kind.”

Ernest did not recognize Violet at first, but she took her place in the daily care of him.  Monica begged that she would prepare food for him such as he had been used to have at home.  She was very sure that would cure him.  It would be almost as good for him as his native air.  She was very glad a woman had come to take care of him.  “His brother’s betrothed,—­a sister,—­she would bring him back to life as no one else could.”

Violet did bring him back to life.  Ernest had become so accustomed to her presence in his half-conscious state, that he never showed surprise at finding her there.  He hardly showed pleasure; only in her absence his feverish restlessness returned; in her presence he was quiet.

He grew strong enough to come out into the air to walk a little.

“I must go to work soon,” he said one day.  “Monsieur will be coming for his Psyche.”

“Your Psyche!  I have not seen it!” exclaimed Violet.  “I have not dared to raise the covering.”

They went in to look at it.  Violet stood silent before it.  Yes, as Monica had said, it was ready to spring from the marble.  It seemed almost too spiritual for form, it scarcely needed the wings for flight, it was ethereal already,—­marble only so long as it remained unfinished.

At last Violet spoke.

“Do not let it go!  Do not finish it; it will leave the marble then, I know!  Oh, Ernest, you have seen the spirit, and the spirit only!  Could not you hold it to earth more closely than that?  It was too bold a thought of you to try to mould the spirit alone.  Is not the body precious, too?  Why wilt you be so careless of that?”

“If the body would care for me,” said Ernest, “I would care for the body.  Indeed, this work shows that I have cared for the body,” he went on.  “One of these days, I shall receive money for my work; I have already sold my Psyche.  One lives on money, you know.  But it is but a poor battle,—­the battle of life.  I shall finish my Psyche, give it to the man who buys it, and then”——­