Viola raised her eyes,--the child’s head was pillowed on her bosom,--and she beheld Zanoni. He smiled on her with a tender and soft approval, and took the infant from her arms. Yet even then, as she saw him bending silently over that pale face, a superstitious fear mingled with her hopes. “Was it by lawful--by holy art that--” her self-questioning ceased abruptly; for his dark eye turned to her as if he read her soul, and his aspect accused her conscience for its suspicion, for it spoke reproach not unmingled with disdain. “Be comforted,” he said, gently turning to the old man, “the danger is not beyond the reach of human skill;” and, taking from his bosom a small crystal vase, he mingled a few drops with water. No sooner did this medicine moisten the infant’s lips, than it seemed to produce an astonishing effect. The colour revived rapidly on the lips and cheeks; in a few moments the sufferer slept calmly, and with the regular breathing of painless sleep. And then the old man rose, rigidly, as a corpse might rise,--looked down, listened, and creeping gently away, stole to the corner of the room, and wept, and thanked Heaven! Now, old Bernardi had been, hitherto, but a cold believer; sorrow had never before led him aloft from earth. Old as he was, he had never before thought as the old should think of death,--that endangered life of the young had wakened up the careless soul of age. Zanoni whispered to the wife, and she drew the old man quietly from the room. “Dost thou fear to leave me an hour with thy charge, Viola? Thinkest thou still that this knowledge is of the Fiend?” “Ah,” said Viola, humbled and yet rejoiced, “forgive me, forgive me, signor. Thou biddest the young live and the old pray. My thoughts never shall wrong thee more!” Before the sun rose, Beatrice was out of danger; at noon Zanoni escaped from the blessings of the aged pair, and as he closed the door of the house, he found Viola awaiting him without. She stood before him timidly, her hands crossed meekly on her bosom, her downcast eyes swimming with tears. “Do not let me be the only one you leave unhappy!” “And what cure can the herbs and anodynes effect for thee? If thou canst so readily believe ill of those who have aided and yet would serve thee, thy disease is of the heart; and--nay, weep not! nurse of the sick, and comforter of the sad, I should rather approve than chide thee. Forgive thee! Life, that ever needs forgiveness, has, for its first duty, to forgive.”