There was her father in his woollen blouse, kneeling, on the brick floor of the room, before a crucifix, his back turned towards her, his hands raised, and, as it seemed from the position of the arms, folded in prayer.  The sunlight fell upon the silver figure, and upon the dark tangled hair of the artist who remained motionless, as though absorbed in devotion, while his daughter watched him through the half-open door.  The scene was one which would have struck any one; the impression it made on Lucia was altogether extraordinary.  She easily fancied that Marzio, after his interview with Don Paolo, had felt a great and sudden revulsion of sentiment.  She knew that the priest had not left the studio many minutes before, and she saw her father apparently praying before a crucifix.  A wonderful conversion had been effected, and the result was there manifest to the girl’s eyes.

She held her breath, and remained at the door, determined not to move until Marzio should have risen from his knees.  To interrupt him at such a moment would have been almost a sacrilege; it might produce the most fatal results; it would be an intrusion upon the privacy of a repentant man.  She stood watching and waiting to see what would happen.

Presently Marzio moved.  Lucia thought he was going to rise from his knees, but she was surprised to see that he only changed the position of the crucifix with one hand.  He approached his head so near the lower part of it that Lucia fancied he was in the act of pressing his lips upon the crossed feet of the silver Christ.  Then he drew back a little, turned his head to one side, and touched the figure with his right hand.  It was evident, now, that he was no longer praying, but that something about the workmanship had attracted his attention.

How natural, the girl said to herself, that this man, even in such a supreme moment, should not forget his art—­that, even in prayer, his eyes should mechanically detect an error of the chisel, a flaw in the metal, or some such detail familiar to his daily life.  She did not think the worse of him for it.  He was an artist!  The habit of his whole existence could not cease to influence him—­he could as soon have ceased to breathe.  Lucia watched him and felt something like love for her father.  Her sympathy was with him in both actions; in his silent prayer, in the inner privacy of his working-room, as well as in the inherent love of his art, from which he could not escape even when he was doing something contrary to the whole tenor of his life.  Lucia thought how Don Paolo’s face would light up when she should tell him of what she had seen.  Then she wondered, with a delicate sense of respect for her father’s secret feelings, whether she would have the right to tell any one what she had accidentally seen through the half-closed door of the studio.

Marzio moved again, and this time he rose to his feet and remained standing, so that the crucifix was completely hidden from her view.  She knocked at the door.  Her father turned suddenly round, and faced the entrance, still hiding the crucifix by his figure.