Camilla. 
       ’Our life is but a little holding, lent
        To do a mighty labour:  we are one
        With heaven and the stars when it is spent
        To serve God’s aim:  else die we with the sun.’

She sinks.  Camillo droops his head above her.

The house was hushed as at a veritable death-scene.  It was more like a cathedral service than an operatic pageant.  Agostino had done his best to put the heart of the creed of his Chief into these last verses.  Rocco’s music floated them in solemn measures, and Vittoria had been careful to articulate throughout the sacred monotony so that their full meaning should be taken.

In the printed book of the libretto a chorus of cavaliers, followed by one harmless verse of Camilla’s adieux to them, and to her husband and life, concluded the opera.

‘Let her stop at that—­it’s enough!—­and she shall be untouched,’ said General Pierson to Antonio-Pericles.

’I have information, as you know, that an extremely impudent song is coming.’

The General saw Wilfrid hanging about the lobby, in flagrant disobedience to orders.  Rebuking his nephew with a frown, he commanded the lieutenant to make his way round to the stage and see that the curtain was dropped according to the printed book.

‘Off, mon Dieu! off!’ Pericles speeded him; adding in English, ’Shall she taste prison-damp, zat voice is killed.’

The chorus of cavaliers was a lamentation:  the keynote being despair:  ordinary libretto verses.

Camilla’s eyes unclose.  She struggles to be lifted, and, raised on Camillo’s arm, she sings as if with the last pulsation of her voice, softly resonant in its rich contralto.  She pardons Michiella.  She tells Count Orso that when he has extinguished his appetite for dominion, he will enjoy an unknown pleasure in the friendship of his neighbours.  Repeating that her mother lives, and will some day kneel by her daughter’s grave—­not mournfully, but in beatitude—­she utters her adieu to all.

At the moment of her doing so, Montini whispered in Vittoria’s ear.  She looked up and beheld the downward curl of the curtain.  There was confusion at the wings:  Croats were visible to the audience.  Carlo Ammiani and Luciano Romara jumped on the stage; a dozen of the noble youths of Milan streamed across the boards to either wing, and caught the curtain descending.  The whole house had risen insurgent with cries of ‘Vittoria.’  The curtain-ropes were in the hands of the Croats, but Carlo, Luciano, and their fellows held the curtain aloft at arm’s length at each side of her.  She was seen, and she sang, and the house listened.