“I cannot understand how it is that she is not dead!” he said at last—­“It is a miracle!  This is a stab inflicted with some sharply pointed instrument,—­probably a dagger—­and was no doubt intended to be mortal.  As it is, it is dangerous—­but there is a chance of life.”  Then he addressed himself to Angela, who was looking at him with wide-open eyes and a most piteous expression.  “Do you know me, my child?”

“Oh, yes, doctor!” she murmured faintly.

“Do you suffer much pain?”

“No.”

“Then can you tell me how this happened?  Who stabbed you?”

She shuddered and sighed.

“No one!—­that I can remember!”

Her eyes closed—­she moved her hands about restlessly as though seeking for something she had lost.

“Manuel!”

“I am here!” answered the boy gently.

“Stay with me!  I am so tired!”

Again a convulsive trembling shook her fragile body from head to foot, and again she sighed as though her heart were breaking,—­then she lay passively still, though one or two tears crept down her cheeks as they carried her tenderly up to her own room and laid her down on her simple little white bed, softly curtained, and guarded by a statue of the Virgin bending over it.  There, when her cruel wound was dressed and bandaged, and the physician had given her a composing draught, she fell into a deep, refreshing slumber, and only Manuel stayed beside her as she slept.

Meanwhile, down in the studio, Prince Sovrani and the Cardinal stayed together, talking softly, and gazing in fascinated wonder, bewilderment, admiration and awe at Angela’s work unveiled.  All the lamps in the room were now lit, and the great picture—­a sublime Dream resolved into sublime Reality—­shone out as much as the artificial light would permit,—­a jewel of art that seemed to contain within itself all the colour and radiance of a heaven unknown, unseen yet surely near at hand.  The figure and face of the approaching Saviour, instinct with life, expressed almost in positive speech the words, “Then shall ye see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory"!—­and if Cardinal Bonpre had given way to the innermost emotions of his soul, he could have knelt before the exalted purity of such a conception of the Christ,- -a god-like ideal, brought into realization by the exalted imagination, the holy thoughts, and the faithful patient work of a mere woman!

“This—­” he said, in hushed accents—­“This must be the cause of the dastardly attempt made to murder the child!  Some one who knew her secret,—­some one who was aware of the wonderful power and magnificence of her work,—­perhaps the very man who made the frame for it,—­who can tell?”

Prince Pietro meditated deeply, a frown puckering his brows,—­his countenance was still pale and drawn with the stress of the mingled agony and relief he had just passed through, and the anxiety he felt concerning Angela’s immediate critical condition.