The door fell back on the latch and Marzio was alone.  He was very pale, and for a moment his features worked angrily.  Then a cruel smile passed over his face.  He stooped down, picked up the crumpled notes, counted them, and replaced them in his purse.  The economical instinct never forsook him, and he did the thing mechanically.  Glancing at the bench his eyes fell on the pointed punch which Gianbattista had taken up in his anger.  He felt it carefully, handled it, looked at it, smiled again and put it into his pocket.

“It is not a bad one,” he muttered.  “How many cherubs’ eyes I have made with that thing!”

He turned to the slate and examined the rough model he had made in wax, flat still, and only indicated by vigorous touches, the red material smeared on the black surface all around it by his fingers.  There was force in the figure, even in its first state, and there was a strange pathos in the bent head, the only part as yet in high relief.  But Marzio looked at it angrily.  He turned it to the light, closed his eyes a moment, looked at it again, and then, with an incoherent oath, his long, discoloured hand descended on the model, and, with a heavy pressure and one strong push, flattened out what he had done, and smeared it into a shapeless mass upon the dark stone.

“I shall never do it,” he said in a low voice.  “They have destroyed my idea.”

For some minutes he rested his head in his hand in deep thought.  At last he rose and went to a corner of the workshop in which stood a heavily ironed box.  Marzio fumbled in his pocket till he found a key, bright from always being carried about with him, and contrasting oddly with the rusty lock into which he thrust it.  It turned with difficulty in his nervous fingers, and he raised the heavy lid.  The coffer was full of packages wrapped in brown paper.  He removed one after another till he came to a wooden case which filled the whole length and breadth of the safe.  He lifted it out carefully and laid it on the end of the bench.  The cover was fastened down by screws, and he undid them one by one until it moved and came off in his hands.  The contents were wrapped carefully in a fine towel, which had once been white, but which had long grown yellow with age.  Marzio unfolded the covering with a delicate touch as though he feared to hurt what was within.  He took out a large silver crucifix, raising it carefully, and taking care not to touch the figure.  He stood it upon the bench before him, and sat down to examine it.

It was a work of rare beauty, which he had made more than ten years before.  With the strange reticent instinct which artists sometimes feel about their finest works, he had finished it in secret, working at night alone, and when it was done he had put it away.  It was his greatest feat, he had said to himself, and, as from time to time he took it out and looked at it, he gradually grew less and less inclined to show it to any one, resolving to leave it in its