“‘Come with me to the church now, padre.’ “I went with her. She had in her hands a length of red ribbon, and there was a scissors hanging at her waist. “When we were in the church she shut the door, and said: “‘Unlock the cupboard in the sacristy, please, padre.’ “We went into the sacristy, and I unlocked this cupboard, and looked at her. “‘What is it you are giving to the Madonna, my child?’ I asked. “She never said a word, but took the scissors from her waist, and before I could stop her she had cut off her beautiful hair. Not that I would have prevented her; no, signore, but it was her one beauty, except the look of goodness in her face. And somehow it seemed to me that the Madonna would have wished— But she was right. We should keep back nothing. She tied the ribbons as they are now, and hung the hair up there upon the Madonna’s hand, and knelt down, and told her that she offered it for Angelo, in the hope that her love of him might be regarded in heaven, and that his life might be spared. That was all. “She put a shawl over her poor head, and we came out. “Well, presently there was a fine to-do in the village. When the folk saw Pancrazia’s head they stared, and asked, and laughed. And the children pointed, and cried out. And the boys—I beat the boys, signore, and never asked forgiveness. But Pancrazia wouldn’t say a word. “Pancrazia’s offering found favour with the Madonna, signore. Her prayer was heard. Angelo recovered, and returned.” The old priest paused. His face was working. The mystical expression I had observed in his eyes was replaced for a moment by a very different look. After a silence he continued: “No one knew then what we all knew later: that he had been nursed back to life—those were Angelo’s words, and a lie, signore, for his recovery was the miracle of the Madonna—by a woman of the islands, and that already his heart was going out to this stranger. He had come back, though, to keep his word. That I know. But when he saw Pancrazia’s poor, shorn head he thought again of the island woman, and⸺” The old man coughed, and paused. “Signore,” he resumed in a loud voice, “when Pancrazia saw his look, and that his heart was turned by such a thing, she would not say where, and why, the hair was gone. And I—I had promised. Angelo was but a lad, his passions were hot, the lust of the eye was awake within him, and—God and the Madonna forgive him!—where he should have seen the heart he⸺” He paused again. “Signore, he went back to the islands, and married the woman who had nursed him in Lipari.” “And Pancrazia?” I asked. “Did she not—pardon me if I hurt you—but did she not cease to pray to the Madonna?” “Cease to pray!” said the old man, and again the mystical look was in his eyes. He drew out his watch, then softly he whispered: “Come, signore!”