It was a quarter past seven.

In the shell-shaped tract watered by the Anio the bells were ringing; first the big bell of Sant' Andrea, then the querulous bells of Santa Maria della Valle; high up on the right, from the little white church near the great wood, the bells of the Capuchins, and others in the far-away distance.

A woman's voice, submissive and sweet, the voice of five and twenty, came from the half-open, door behind Giovanni, saying almost timidly In French: "May I come in ?" Giovanni, smiling, turned half round, and stretching out his arm, encircled the young woman pressing her to his side without answering.
She felt she must not speak; that her husband's soul was following the dying night, and the mystic song of the bells.

She rested her head on his shoulder, and only after a moment of religious silence did she ask softly; "Shall we say our prayer ?" A pressure of the arm encircling her was the answer.

Neither her lips nor his moved.