But at night--and that night, curiously enough, only one lamp was burning, that before the Virgin--the wretchedness disappeared; only great fluttering shadows filled the chapel. One could not see the colour of the wood and metal; only the white altar-cloth was visible. There were no sparks of brightness, only in the trembling light Mary's sad face seemed agonized; and as the flame, shaken by an invisible breath of wind, bent to the right or left, Jesus' hands and side seemed really to bleed.
Bianca Maria was deep in thought, and, accustomed to the chapel, she felt neither the cold nor the gloom. Suddenly she trembled, thinking she heard a great noise in the room. It was then she noticed the lamp before Christ was out. She shivered with cold and fear. The Virgin seemed to weep over her bleeding Son's agony. Bianca Maria went quickly out of the chapel, taking her book with her, crossing herself hurriedly as if followed by some evil spirit.
In the antechamber an old servant in the Cavalcanti livery--dull blue, piped with white--sat reading an old newspaper by the light of one of those old brass lamps with three spouts one still sees in the provinces and in very aristocratic houses. He rose as he heard Bianca Maria's light step, looking her in the eyes.
'Giovanni,' she said, in her pure harmonious voice, 'in the chapel the lamp before the Ecce Homo has gone out.'
The old servant looked at her, and hesitated a little before answering.
'I did not light it,' he then muttered, casting down his eyes, and crushing up the paper in his lean hands.
'Perhaps you had no oil?' she asked, with a little tremor in her voice, turning her anxious face towards him.
'No, my lady, no,' the servant eagerly answered at once. 'There is lots of oil in the pantry. It was by the Marquis's orders I did not light the lamp.'
'Did he give you such an order?' she asked, amazed, arching her eyebrows.
But she regretted the question at once. It seemed to fail in the profound respect she owed her father. Still, the word had rushed out. She would have liked to go away and not hear the answer, whatever it was; but she feared to make matters worse, and listened with open eyes, ready to restrain her astonishment and fear.