“O, most holy Mary!” cried Nella, holding up her hands with the things she carried.

Marietta believed that Zorzi was dead, for he was very white and he lay quite still.  At first she opened her eyes wide in horror, but in a moment she sank down, covering her face.  Pasquale knelt opposite her on one knee, and began to turn Zorzi on his back.  Nella was at his feet, and she helped, with great gentleness.

“Do not be frightened, lady,” said Pasquale reassuringly.  “He has only fainted.  I left him on the bench, but you see he must have tried to get up to feed the fire.”

While he spoke he was lifting Zorzi as well as he could.  Marietta dropped her hands and slowly opened her eyes, and she knew that Zorzi was alive when she saw his face, though it was ghastly and smeared with grey ashes.  But in those few moments she had felt what she could never forget.  It had been as if a vast sword-stroke had severed her body at the waist, and yet left her heart alive.

“Can you help a little?” asked Pasquale.  “If I could get him into my arms, I could carry him alone.”

Marietta sprang to her feet, all her energy and strength returning in a moment.  The three carried the unconscious man easily enough to the bench and laid him down, as he had lain before, with his head on the leathern cushion.  Then Nella set to work quickly and skilfully, for she hoped to dress the wound while he was still insensible.  Marietta helped her, instinctively doing what was right.  It was a hideous wound.

“It will heal more quickly than you think,” said Nella, confidently.  “The burning has cauterised it.”

Marietta, delicately reared and unused to such sights, would have felt faint if the man had not been Zorzi.  As it was she only felt sharp pain, each time that Nella touched the foot.  Pasquale looked on, helpless but approving.

Zorzi groaned, then opened his eyes and moved one hand.  Nella had almost finished.

“If only he can be kept quiet a few moments longer,” she said, “it will be well done.”

Zorzi writhed in pain, only half conscious yet.  Marietta left Nella to put on the last bandages, and came and looked down into his face, taking one of his hands in hers.  He recognised her, and stared in wild surprise.

“You must try and not move,” she said softly.  “Nella has almost finished.”

He forgot what he suffered, and the agonised contraction of his brows and mouth relaxed.  Marietta wiped away the ashes from his forehead and cheeks, and smoothed back his thick hair.  No woman’s hand had touched him thus since his mother’s when he had been a little child.  He was too weak to question what was happening to him, but a soft light came into his eyes, and he unconsciously pressed Marietta’s hand.

She blushed at the pressure, without knowing why, and first the maiden instinct was to draw away her hand, but then she pitied him and let it stay.  She thought, too, that her touch helped to keep him quiet, and indeed it did.