Marzio took it up and brought it to the light.

Maria Luisa stared at him sorrowfully, as though reproaching him with indifference in the general calamity.

But Marzio looked intently at the drawing.

It was only a sketch, but it was very beautifully done.

He saw that his ideal was still the same, and that upon the piece of paper he had only reproduced the features he had chiselled ten years ago, with an added beauty of expression, with just those additions which to-day he had made upon the original.