And the canvas over the heart of the Virgin was cut in a long, clean stroke--and opened in a disfiguring gash. Beneath it, on a little stand, lay a slim-bladed, vicious knife, covered with dust. Blagden wonderingly stooped to pick it up--and a voice spoke out of the darkness behind him. "I would not touch it, Signor," it said, and Blagden wheeled guiltily. A man was standing in the shadow, almost at his elbow. He was old, the oldest man Blagden had ever seen, and he wore the long brown gown of a monk. His face was like a withered leaf, lined and yellow, and his hair was silver white. Only the small, saurian eyes held Blagden with their strange brilliance. The rest of his face was like a death mask. "Why not?" said Blagden. The monk stepped forward into the dim light, crossing himself as he passed the picture. He looked hesitatingly at the younger man before him, searching his face with his wonderfully piercing eyes. He seemed to find there what he was searching for, and when he spoke Blagden wondered at the gentleness of his voice. "There is a story. Would the Signor care to hear?" Blagden nodded, and the two moved back in the shadows a short distance to the front line of little low chairs. Before them, over the dancing light of the four candles, stood the mutilated picture of Mary, beneath it the dust-covered dagger. And then the withered monk began speaking, and Blagden listened, looking up at the picture. "It all happened a great many years ago," said the old man; "but I am old, so I remember. "Rosa was the girl's name. She lived with her father and mother in a little house above Menaggio. And every day in the warm sunlight of the open fields she sang as she watched the goats for the old people, and her voice was like cool water laughing in the shadows of a little brook. "She was always singing, little Rosa; for she was young, and the sun had never stopped shining for her. People used to call her beautiful. "And there was Giovanni. Each morning he would pass her home where the yellow roses with the pink hearts grew so sweetly, and always she would blow him a kiss from the little window. "Then Giovanni would toil with all the strength of his youth, and he too would sing while he toiled; for was it not all for her? "Often Rosa's goats would stray toward Giovanni's vineyard as dusk came, and they would drive them home together, always laughing, always singing, hand in hand, as the sun slipped golden over the top of the hills across the lake. Sometimes they would walk together in the afterglow, and Giovanni would weave a crown of the little flowers that grew about them, and his princess would wear it, laughing happily. "They were like two children, Signor. There were nights spent together on the lake, when he told her of his dreams, while the gentlest of winds stirred her curls against his brown cheek, and the moon's wake stretched like a golden pathway from shore to shore.