At last a man entered the room.  Ethel, who had heard all, was faint with anxiety.  She was afraid that the priest had not finished his task.

Her fears were groundless.

Just as the foremost of the men entered the room the priest finished screwing, and stood by the coffin, having slipped the screw-driver into his pocket, as calm as though nothing had happened.  Three of the screws were in, and that was as many as were needed.

The men brought no light with them, and this circumstance was in the priest’s favor.

“You’ve been keeping me waiting long,” said the priest, in Italian.

“You may be glad it wasn’t longer,” said one of them, in a sullen tone.  “Where is it?”

“Here,” said the priest.

The men gathered around the coffin, and stooped down over it, one at each corner.  Then they raised it up.  Then they carried it out; and soon the heavy steps of the men were heard as they went down the stairs with their burden.

Ethel still stood watching and listening.

As she listened she heard some one ascending the stairs.  New terror arose.  Something was wrong, and all would be discovered.  But the man who came up had no light, and that was one comfort.  She could not see who it was.

The man stopped for a moment in front of Minnie’s door, and stood so close to her that she heard his breathing.  It was quick and heavy, like the breathing of a very tired or a very excited man.  Then he turned away and went to the door of the front-room opposite.  Here he also stood for a few moments.

All was still.

Then he came back, and entered Hawbury’s room.

Now the crisis had come—­the moment when all might be discovered.  And if so, they all were lost.  Ethel bent far forward and tried to peer through the gloom.  She saw the dark figure of the new-comer pass by one of the windows, and by the outline she knew that it was Girasole.  He passed on into the shadow, and toward the place where the straw was.  She could not see him any more.

Girasole stepped noiselessly and cautiously, as though fearful of waking the sleeper.  At every step he paused and listened.  The silence reassured him.

He drew nearer and nearer, his left hand groping forward, and his right hand holding a pistol.  His movements were perfectly noiseless.

His own excitement was now intense, his heart throbbed fiercely and almost painfully as he approached his victim.

At last he reached the spot, and knelt on one knee.  He listened for a moment.  There was no noise and no movement on the part of the figure before him.

In the gloom he could see the outline of that figure plainly.  It lay on its side, curled up in the most comfortable attitude which could be assumed, where arms and legs were bound.

“How soundly he sleeps!” thought Girasole.

He paused for a moment, and seemed to hesitate; but it was only for a moment.  Then, summing up his resolution, he held his pistol close to the head of the figure, and fired.