He wondered if she could hear his heart, which was beating like a hammer, and whether she noticed anything strange in his voice.  If she did, she would not understand.  She was only a child after all.  He told himself that he was old enough to be her father, though he was not; he tried not to think of her at all.  But that was of no use.  He would have given his body, his freedom, his soul and the life to come, to kiss her as she lay helpless in his arms; he would have given anything the world held, or heaven, if it had been his; anything, except his honour.  But that he would not give.  His heart might beat itself to pieces, his brain might whirl, the little fires might flash furiously in his closed eyes, his throat might be as parched as the rich man’s in hell—­she had trusted herself to him like a child, in sheer despair and misery, and safe as a child she should lie on his breast.  She should die there, if they were to die.

“I am warm now,” she said at last, “really quite warm again, if you want to go back.”

He did not wonder.  He felt as if he were on fire from his head to his feet.  At her words he relaxed his arms at once, and she stood up.

“You are so good to me,” she said, with an impulse of gratitude for safety which she herself did not understand.  “What makes you so good to me?”

He shook his head, as if he could not answer then, and smiled a little sadly.

“Now that you are warm, I must not lose time,” he said, a moment later, taking up his lantern.

She sat down in her old place, and gathered her skirt to her feet and watched him as he climbed out and the last rays of light disappeared.  Then the pounding at the wall began again, far off, and she tried to count the strokes, as she had done before; but she wished him back, and whether she felt cold or not, she wished herself again quietly folded in his arms, and though she was alone and it was quite dark she blushed at the thought.  It seemed to her that the blows were struck in quicker succession now than before.  Was he willing to tire himself out a little sooner, so as to earn the right to come back to her?

That was not it.  He was growing desperate, and could not control the speed of his hands so perfectly as before.  The night was advancing, he knew, though he had not looked at the watch, which was still in Sabina’s glove.  It was growing late, and he could distinguish no sound but that of the blows he struck at the bricks and the steady roar of the water.  The conviction grew on him that Masin was drowned, and perhaps old Sassi too, and that their bodies lay at the bottom of the outer chamber, between the well and the wall of the cellar.  If Masin had been able to get into the well, before the water was too high, he would have risen with it, for he was a good swimmer.

So was Malipieri, and more than once he thought of making an attempt to reach the widened slit in the wall by diving.  That he could find the opening he was sure, but he was almost equally sure that he could never get through it alive and up to the surface on the other side.  If he were drowned too, Sabina would be left to die alone, or perhaps to go mad with horror before she was found.  He had heard of such things.