The great church was silent as she pushed aside the leathern curtain of a side door. The day was almost done; here and there on the pavement knelt a lonely figure; a sacristan moved noiselessly, lighting the lamps in the nave. She went to a side chapel, which she remembered, whither her mother had always gone; and she knelt there, a tired, dusty, unnoticeable woman, and she prayed with all the force of her spirit. It might be no good. There might come no answer. But she would have done what she could. She prayed as women pray for their sick at Loretto and Lourdes. There was a silver lamp above the altar; it swayed slowly to and fro. She bowed her head down upon the stones, and covered her face with her hands. “Holy ones, take the only thing I have,” she murmured. “I am poor and of no account, but hearken unto me. I give you all I have. Grant him his heart’s desire.” And she loosened from her throat a little agate heart. It had been her mother’s; it was hung round her neck by a plaited tress of gray hair. She laid it down under the silver lamp upon the altar; it was her only treasure. In all the world she had nothing else. It looked very small, very poor, very valueless, as it lay, dark and worn, in the light of the lamp. But she thought they would not despise it or reject it. They would know it was all she had. In a little while the church was fully lighted; the service of vespers began. She got up from her knees and walked away down the side aisle, leaving the agate heart and the braid of her mother’s hair behind her. Her throat ached with silent, hidden weeping. She slept that night in a poor place in the town that she knew, and left the gates at daybreak in the public vehicle, packed close between other women and screeching fowls, and wailing babes, and crowded crates of ducklings, on her homeward way to the cross-road which led to Le Selve. She felt as if her heart was of lead now that her amulet was no longer warm against the pulses of it. But she did not regret what she had done. In a few hours the walls and towers of Viterbo had faded from the distance, and she saw again the dark waters of the little lake of Vico, and the chestnuts and oak forests of the Ciminian slopes. She left Ronciglione on foot, and on her homeward way met a horseman, who, passing her, stopped his horse. “Have you thought of what I offered to you last week?” he asked. “No,” replied Muriella. “How long will it be before you do?” “As long as the earth is old.” “I am a bad foe, Muriella.” “Perhaps you are a worse lover.” “I would give you a string of pearls and a box of clothes.” “Keep the pearls for your betrothed and the clothes for a beggar, and ride away to your _dama_ at La Storta.” “Where have you been?” “That is naught to you.” “You look jaded and worn.” “I am fresh enough to make your ears tingle if you molest me. Get you gone to your lawful allegiance.”