Get me water from the brook, yonder." The fool looked about him for a vessel, and his eye falling upon the Count's capacious hat, he snatched it up, and went his errand.

When he returned, the lady was kneeling with the unconscious man's head in her lap.

Into the hatful of water that Peppe brought her she dipped a kerchief, and with this she bathed the brow on which his long black hair lay matted and disordered.
"See how he has bled, Peppe," said she.

"His doublet is drenched, and he is bleeding still! Vergine Santa!" she cried, beholding now the ugly wound that gaped in his shoulder, and turning pale at the sight.
"Assuredly he will die of it--and he so young, Peppino, and so comely to behold!" Francesco stirred, and a sigh fluttered through his pallid lips.

Then he raised his heavy lids, and their glances met and held each other.