"That this news should work upon the young village-folk like valerian upon cats, you, my friend, will easily believe. Had we been in the old times of Greeks and Trojans, Domenico would easily have assembled an army to pursue and recover his lost Helen. But in spite of all that was said and shrieked, spite of fury and curses, nothing came of it, and soon it seemed as though these braggadocios were ashamed of even uttering the name of the girl who had refused them all to go off at last with a heretic and barbarian. There were only two who could not forget her. I was one, and it was in vain I sought consolation from the muses. The other was Domenico Il Rosso, in whose eyes anybody with an insight into human nature might easily have read that he was brooding over desperate deeds. "And too surely before a month had elapsed since Erminia's flight all my fears were realised. I remember the day as tho' it were yesterday: it was on a Thursday--and the heat was such that the flies on the wall were giddy, and at noon no Christian soul ventured out. I had closed my shop-door, and all the shutters, and lay between sleeping and waking in this very chair where I now sit. There was nothing to be heard but the sleepy drip-drop of the fountain, and the rustling of dry herbs on the counter, over which my tame canary-bird was hopping to-and-fro. Suddenly I fancied I heard some one knock at the shop-door, and call my name, and annoyed at being disturbed, I rubbed my eyes awake, and prepared to see whether any one had really been taken suddenly ill. The knocking was repeated, louder and quicker, as if in urgent haste, and I had my hand on the door-handle when I heard a dreadful scream, 'Jesus, Maria, have mercy on me!' I tore open the door, and saw a woman sink on the threshold, from whose breast there gushed such a stream of blood, that while I stooped to raise her I was reddened from top to toe. Three steps off with a face like ashes stood Domenico, with eyes wide-opened as though his crime had killed him too. 'Domenico,' I cried, 'what hast thou done? Cursed be thy hand which has wrought this horrible deed.' 'Amen,' he replied, 'it was her fate. Now let him come.' And so saying he turned round--for some horror-stricken faces began to appear at the windows--and slowly traversed the sun-lit piazza till he reached the gateway, where he disappeared like a spectre.