iron railing,—­and when he came within a few paces of what appeared to be the entrance, he was startled by the sudden heavy clang of a bell, which, striking through the still air, created such harsh clamour that he instinctively shivered at the sound.  He paused,—­and again the dismal boom crashed on his ears,—­ then as its echo died away another deep monotone, steadily persistent, began to stir the silence with words,—­words, which to Florian Varillo in his nervous excitation of mind sounded hellish and horrible.

   “Libera me Domine, de morte aeterna!”
   “In die ilia tremenda!”
   “Quando coeli movendi suntet terra!”
   “Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!”

He listened, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.  With that strange weakness and effeminacy which often distinguishes the artistic, and particularly the Italian artistic temperament, he was excessively superstitious, and this unexpected chanting of a psalm of death seemed to him at the moment, of supernatural and predetermined origin, devised on purpose to intensify the growing terrors of his coward conscience.

   “Tremens factus sum ego!”
   “Et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque venerit ira!”

Once more the great bell tolled heavily, and its discordant tone seemed to tear his brain.  He uttered an involuntary cry,—­every weak impulse in his soul was aroused,—­and in the excess of a miserable self-pity he longed to excuse himself for his crime of treachery and cruelty to the innocent woman who loved him,—­to throw the blame on someone else,—­if he could only find that someone else!  Anything rather than own himself to be the mean wretch and traitor that he was.  For he was a cultured and clever man,—­a scholar,—­an artist,—­ a poet;—­these things were not consistent with murder!  A man who painted beautiful pictures,—­a man who wrote exquisite verses,—­he could never be suspected of stabbing a helpless trusting woman in the back out of sheer jealousy, like a common hired assassin!  No no!  He could never be suspected!  Why had he not thought of his intellectual gifts,—­his position in the world of art, before?  No one in their senses could possibly accuse him in the way he had imagined!—­and even if the dagger-sheath were found, some explanation might be given,—­someone else might be found guilty . . .

   “Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra;
    Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!”

Again that horrible bell!  Moved by a sudden desperate determination to find out what this mysterious chanting was, and where it came from, he braced himself up and walked resolutely and quickly on to a great gateway, cross-barred and surmounted with tall spikes,—­and there seized by fresh panic, he clung to the grating for support and stared through it affrightedly, his teeth chattering and his whole frame shaking as with an ague fit.  What were those dark terrible figures he saw?  Were they phantoms or men?  Gaunt