Antonio distorted his mouth in a vain effort to speak. At last, with a frantic oath, he swept the silver box into the fireplace, where it fell amid the brush-wood and inflammable rubbish piled ready for lighting under the big logs. Fiammetta had tried to stop him. Under her clutching hand, his fur-trimmed sleeve had slipped up, exposing his forearm. She was staring at his forearm. "The scar?" she whispered. "Was it not here, when you raised your arm to shield yourself against them, that you caught the first knife-thrust? How long does it take for such a scar to pass entirely away?" Lina and Laura sank back in their chairs. Leonello averted his face. Leonardo turned away. Again Antonio tried to speak. The terror that held us in its grip was communicated to Fiammetta di Foscone. Her countenance became bloodless. Her teeth chattered. She murmured: "What is happening to me? I am so cold!" She sank down, amid billows of violet-colored silk, between Antonio's arms, before the fireplace. Her veil, confined by the band of pearls and amethysts, did not seem as white as her skin. There was a hysterical babble of voices: "She is dead! No, she has swooned! Bring vinegar! Rub her hands! Light the fire!" Then ensued a jostling of guests and servants, who crowded forward to poke a dozen lighted candles at the brush-wood. In the midst of this confusion Fiammetta sat before the hearth, her eyes half closed, her head rolling against Antonio's shoulder, her throat, framed by the little ruff, palpitating like the breast of an expiring dove. She was in the throes of the emotions that had been at last transferred from our minds to hers and that she was doubtless on the point of comprehending. The brush-wood caught fire. At that flicker her eyelids opened. She leaned forward. Under the brush-wood, already writhing in flames, was the fragment of a modern Italian newspaper. One plainly saw the title, part of a head-line, and the date. Fiammetta di Foscone read the date. As Antonio and I, between us, lifted her into a chair, she kept repeating to herself, in a soft, incredulous voice, the date. And so badly had our wits been paralyzed by this catastrophe, that none of us could find one lying word to utter. Antonio knelt before her, his arms clasping her knees, his head bowed. He was weeping as if she were already dead. Her hands slowly stole forth to close around his face and lift it up. "Whatever it is," she breathed, "I still have you." As she gazed, half lifeless, but still fairer than an untinted statue, at his face, all at once her eyes became enormous. Pushing him from her, she stood bolt-upright at one movement, with a heart-rending scream: "A stranger!"