There was no furniture in the room but a big table and the benches and chairs.

Above the tapestries the bare walls were painted, up to the carved ceiling.

There was nothing to account for the noise.

Contarini looked nervously over his shoulder as he left the room, and more than once again as he went up the marble staircase, candle in hand.

There is probably nothing more disturbing to people of ordinary nerves than a sound heard in a lonely place and for which it is impossible to find a reason.
When he reached the broad landing he smiled at himself and looked back a last time, shading the candle with his hand, so as to throw the light down the staircase.