Donna Micaela hung convulsively on her father’s arm, but she did not speak, and went on. Then Cavaliere Palmeri began to speak of Gaetano. “I did not know that he was so beloved,” he said. “Nor I,” murmured Donna Micaela. “To-day I saw some strangers coming into Donna Elisa’s shop, and begging her to be allowed to buy something that he had carved. She had left only a couple of old rosaries, and I saw her break them to pieces and give them out bead by bead.” Donna Micaela looked at her father like a beseeching child. But he did not know whether she wished him to be silent or to go on speaking. “Donna Elisa’s old friends go about in the garden with Luca,” he said, “and Luca shows them Gaetano’s favorite places and the garden beds that he used to plant. And Pacifica sits in the workshop beside the joiner’s-bench, and relates all sorts of things about him, ever since he was--so big.” He could tell no more; the crush and the noise became so great about him that he had to stop. They meant to go to the Cathedral. On the Cathedral steps sat old Assunta, as usual. She held a rosary in her hands and mumbled the same prayer round the whole rosary. She asked the saint that Gaetano, who had promised to help all the poor, might come back to Diamante. As Donna Micaela walked by her, she distinctly heard: “San Sebastiano, give us Gaetano! Ah, in your mercy; ah, in our misery, San Sebastiano, give us Gaetano!” Donna Micaela had meant to go into the church, but she turned on the steps. “There is such a crowd there,” she said, “I do not dare to go in.” She went home again. But while she had been away, Donna Elisa had watched her opportunity. She had hoisted a flag on the roof of the summer-palace; she had spread draperies on the balconies, and as Donna Micaela came home, she was fastening up a garland in the gateway. For Donna Elisa could not bear to have the summer-palace underrated. She wished no honor to San Sebastiano omitted at this time. And she feared that the saint would not help Diamante and Gaetano if the palace of the old Alagonas did not honor him. Donna Micaela was pale as if she had received her death warrant, and bent like an old woman of eighty years. She murmured to herself: “I make no busts of him; I sing no songs about him; I dare not pray to God for him; I buy none of his beads. How can he believe that I love him? He must love all these others, who worship him, but not me. I do not belong to his world, he can love me no longer.” And when she saw that they wished to adorn her house with flowers, it seemed to her so piteously cruel that she snatched the wreath from Donna Elisa and threw it at her feet, asking if she wished to kill her. Then she went past her up the stairs to her room. She threw herself on the sofa and buried her face in the cushions. She now first understood how far apart she and Gaetano were. The idol of the people could not love her. She felt as if she had prevented him from helping all those poor people.