They stood in the dusky gloom, speechless, hidden from each other, till their gaze became accustomed to the shade. He was helplessly unable to break the silence. Fear, joy, desire, doubt were tossing him. The breath came fast. She raised her arms and caught her white throat. "How cool it is, how sweet!" she said. "At Avellino," and she glanced at him half shyly, "you would never take me to your grotto!" "Ah! But this grotto," he tried to speak as lightly as she, "we have found together!" "Together!" she reflected, looking away from him. "It is a word we have not often had occasion to use,--you and I." "Why might we not in the days to come?" The words were on his lips; he held them back. Ilaria waited, her hand pressed to her side, her look full of mingled tenderness and dread. As he kept silence, she sighed, almost, it would seem, with relief. "I wish to explore the cave," she said suddenly. "Come with me, if you like!" And with quick steps she started into the darkness. "Take care! Take care, Lariella!" cried Francesco, unconsciously using the familiar diminutive, forgotten so long ago. She took no heed and he hurried after her, terror-stricken, he knew not why. She kept in advance, moving swiftly and lightly over the dark uneven ground. For a short distance the dusk deepened, then a sudden light, shining from a crack in the vaulting, revealed in startling contrast a great blackness by the side of which there gleamed something weird, ghost-like. Ilaria screamed and stumbled. The passage, widening beneath her feet, broke downwards into a pool of the waters of Styx. A lost stair had betrayed her. Francesco, speeding forward, caught her garments, drew her back. She staggered and yielded to his arms. They leaned together against the wall of the grotto. The earth had fallen away a little at the shock, revealing in the uncertain light the white figure of a woman. They both stared at it, holding their breath. The image stood embedded in the rocky cavity, whither some force had in past ages carried her from her old position, for she had evidently presided over the Piscina, or the bath of some rich Roman, who rejoiced in her Greek fairness. The face was free, but soil and mould had given it a half-sinister expression. The limbs, so far as visible,--and the earth in falling away had left one white side of the body entirely bare,--were perfect. Ilaria struggled to free herself from Francesco's embrace and sank, half fainting, at the statue's base. "The peril is over," said Francesco, and echoes filled the whole cavern with murmuring. "Dearest, be not afraid! Look at me!" As her head drooped, he knelt beside her, half distraught, and rubbed her wrists and forehead with water from the pool. She opened her eyes and smiled at him, as a child might. "Fonté Gaia!" she whispered. The words had been in his own mind. Lifting her hand, she touched and stroked the marble, and the awe grew in her eyes.