The young man seemed to be stricken with a sort of dizzy stupor, his eyes receded farther and farther into the depth of their dark sockets, whilst his whole face became withered, aged as it were, and covered with an earthy pallor.

A moment previously he had closed his eyes, and the only sign that he still lived was the heaving of his chest induced by painful respiration.

And leaning over his poor dying face stood Benedetta, sharing his sufferings, and mastered by such impotent grief that she also was unrecognisable, so white, so distracted by anguish, that it seemed as if death were gradually taking her at the same time as it was taking him.
In the recess by the window whither Cardinal Boccanera had led Doctor Giordano, a few words were exchanged in low tones.

"He is lost, is he not ?" The doctor made the despairing gesture of one who is vanquished: "Alas! yes.

I must warn your Eminence that in an hour all will be over." A short interval of silence followed.