In an interval, while she had no pain, she spoke to her boys.
"Ruggiero--Sebastiano--dear sons--you could not save me, and I am going.
God bless you.

Our Lady help you--remember--you are Children of the King--remember--ah." She sighed heavily and her jaw fell as another sort of pallor spread suddenly over her face.

Poor Carmela was dead at last, after weeks of sickness, worked to death, as the neighbours said, by Pietro Casale and his wife Concetta.
She left those two boys, lean, poorly clad lads of ten and twelve years, yellow haired and blue eyed, with big bones and hunger-pinched faces.
They could just remember seeing their father brought home dead with a knife wound in his breast six years earlier.

Now they took hands as they looked at their dead mother with a sort of wondering gaze.

There were no tears, no cries of despair--least of all did they show any fear.
Old Padre Michele made them kneel down, still hand in hand, while he recited prayers for the dead.