“It does not matter,” said Rufin.  The room was raw and aching with light; the big electrics were pitiless.  In the middle of it a man sat on a chair and raised expectant eyes at his arrival.  It was Giaconi, the painter, the murderer.  There was some disorder of his dress which Rufin noted automatically, but it was not for some minutes that he perceived its cause—­the collar of his coat had been shorn away.  The man sat under all those fascinated eyes impatiently; his tired and whimsical face was tense and drawn; he was plainly putting a strong constraint upon himself.  The great shoulders, the huge arms, all the compressed strength of the body, made the effect of some strong animal fettered and compelled to tameness.

“Rufin?” he said hesitatingly.

The painter nodded.  “Yes, it is Rufin.”

The girl glided past him toward the seated man.  “And I, Pietro,” she said.

He made a gesture with his hand as though to move her aside, for she stood between him and Rufin.

“Ah,” she cried, “do you not need me at all—­even now?”

“Oh, what is it?” said the condemned man, with a quick irritation.  “Is this a time!  There is not a moment to spare.  I must speak to Rufin—­I must.  Yes, kneel down; that’s right!”

She had sunk at his knee and laid her brown head upon it.  As though to acknowledge the caress of a dog, he let one hand fall on her bowed shoulders.  His eyes traveled across her to Rufin.

“They told me you would come.  Say—­is it because of my picture?”

“Yes,” said Rufin.  “I have done all that I could to save you because of that.  But——­”

“I know,” said the other.  “They have told me.  You like it, then—­my poor ‘Mona Lisa’ of Montmartre?”

Rufin stepped closer.  It was not easy to utter all he desired to say under the eyes of those uniformed men, with the sad, attentive priest in the background.

“Monsieur,” he said, “your picture is in my studio.  Nothing shall ever hang in its place, for nothing will be worthy.”

The seated man heard him hungrily.  For the moment he seemed to have forgotten where he was and what was to happen to him ere he drew many more breaths.

“I knew,” he said, “I knew.  I can paint.  So can you, Monsieur—­ sometimes.  We two—–­we know!”

He frowned heavily as realization returned to him.  “And now I never shall,” he said.  “I never shall!  Ah, it is horrible!  A man is two people, and both die like a single soul.  You know, for you are an artist.”

“I—­I have done my best,” said Rufin despairingly.  “If I could go instead and leave you to paint—­oh, believe me, I would go now gladly, proudly, for I should have given the world pictures—­great pictures.”

A spasm of emotion filled his eyes with tears, and some one touched his arm and drew him aside.  He strove with himself fiercely and looked up again to see that three men had entered the room and were going toward the prisoner.  The priest had come forward and was raising the kneeling girl.