The quiet afternoon sun fell upon the houses on the opposite side of the street, and cast a melancholy reflection into the dismal chamber where Prince Montevarchi had passed so many hours of his life, and in which that life had been cut short so suddenly.  On the table before his dead hands lay the copy of the verdict, the testimony of his last misdeed, of the crime for which he had paid the forfeit upon the very day it was due.  It lay there like the superscription upon a malefactor’s gallows in ancient times, the advertisement of the reason of his death to all who chose to inquire.  Not a sound was heard save the noise that rose faintly and at intervals from the narrow street below, the cry of a hawker, the song of a street-boy, the bark of a dog.  To-morrow the poor body would be mounted upon a magnificent catafalque, surrounded by the pomp of a princely mourning, illuminated by hundreds of funeral torches, an object of aversion, of curiosity, even of jest, perhaps, among those who bore the prince a grudge.  Many of those who had known him would come and look on his dead face, and some would say that he was changed and others that he was not.  His wife and his children would, in a few hours, be all dressed in black, moving silently and mournfully and occasionally showing a little feeling, though not more than would be decent.  There would be masses sung, and prayers said, and his native city would hear the tolling of the heavy bells for one of her greatest personages.  All this would be done, and more also, until the dead prince should be laid to rest beneath the marble floor of the chapel where his ancestors lay side by side.

But to-day he sat in state in his shabby chair, his head lying upon that table over which he had plotted and schemed for so many years, his white fingers almost touching the bit of paper whereon was written the ruin of the Saracinesca.

And upstairs the man who had killed him shuffled about the library, an anxious expression on his yellow face, glancing from time to time at his hands as he took down one heavy volume after another, practising in solitude the habit of seeming occupied, in order that he might not be taken unawares when an under-servant should be sent to tell the insignificant librarian of what had happened that day in Casa Montevarchi.

CHAPTER XXI.

Giovanni came home late in the afternoon and found Corona sitting by the fire in her boudoir.  She had known that he would return before long, but had not anticipated his coming with any pleasure.  When he entered the room she looked up quietly, without a smile, to assure herself that it was he and no one else.  She said nothing, and he sat down upon the other side of the fireplace.  There was an air of embarrassment about their meetings, until one or the other had made some remark which led to a commonplace conversation.  On the present occasion neither seemed inclined to be the first speaker and for some