As she passed through the door, a low cry of pain made her start and hesitate, and she stood still.  The degree of her acquaintance with the members of the family was just such that she would not quite dare to intrude upon them if they had given way to an expression of pardonable weakness under their final misfortune, whereas if they were bearing it with reasonable fortitude she could allow herself to offer her sympathy and even some judicious help.

She stood still and the sound was repeated, the pitiful little tearless complaint of a young thing suffering alone.  It was somewhere in the big room, hidden amongst the furniture; which was less stiffly arranged here than in the outer apartments.  There were books and newspapers on the table, the fireplace was half-full of the ashes of a burnt-out fire, there were faded flowers in a tall vase near the window, there was the undefinable presence of life in the heavier and warmer air.  At first the Baroness had thought that the cry came from some small animal, hurt and forgotten there in the great catastrophe; a moment later she was sure that there was some one in the room.

She moved cautiously forward in the direction whence the sound had come.  Then she saw the edge of a fawn-coloured cloth skirt on the red carpet by an armchair.  She went on, hesitating no longer.  She had seen the frock only a day or two ago, and it belonged to Sabina Conti.

A very fair young girl was kneeling in the shadow, crouching over something on the floor.  Her hair was like the pale mist in the morning, tinged with gold.  She was very slight, and as she bent down, her slender neck was dazzling white above the collar of her frock.  She was trembling a little.

“My dear Sabina, what has happened?” asked the Baroness Volterra, leaning over her with an audible crack in the region of the waist.

At the words the girl turned up her pale face, without the least start of surprise.

“It is dead,” she said, in a very low voice.

The Baroness looked down, and saw a small bunch of yellow feathers lying on the floor at the girl’s knees; the poor little head with its colourless beak lay quite still on the red carpet, turned upon one side, as if it were resting.

“A canary,” observed the Baroness, who had never had a pet in her life, and had always wondered how any one could care for such stupid things.

But the violet eyes gazed up to hers reproachfully and wonderingly.

“It is dead.”

That should explain everything; surely the woman must understand.  Yet there was no response.  The Baroness stood upright again, grasping her parasol and looking down with a sort of respectful indifference.  Sabina said nothing, but took up the dead bird very tenderly, as if it could still feel that she loved it, and she pressed it softly to her breast, bending her head to it, and then kissing the yellow feathers.  When it was alive it used to nestle there, almost as it lay now.  It had been very tame.