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Every window looking westward was broken at once, except some few on the lower stories of houses protected by buildings opposite. Giovanni Severi was in the main building over the vaults a short time before the catastrophe, having just finished a special inspection which had occupied most of the afternoon.
He himself would bring Giovanni to the place and the Mother Superior would accompany the nun. He and the Mother would withdraw into the hall and wait until Sister Giovanna dismissed Severi. The Mother would then join her, and Monsignor Saracinesca would go away with Giovanni.
Half-an-hour later Giovanni Severi entered the gate below in civilian's dress and asked if he could see Madame Bernard, the French teacher, who had let him know that she was stopping in the palace. The porter told him to ring at the right-hand door on the second landing, but added that it was doubtful whether any one would let him in, as there was 'confusion in the house.
Giovanni Severi, the man Angela had loved, the man who had been called dead for five years he had come back from death she had seen him with his brother he had known her. She was not going to faint again, but she sank forward, bending almost double, her hands on the arms of the chair, her young head bowed with woe. There was something awful in her suffering, now that she was silent.
General Severi had lived to retrieve a part of his fortune, and had died rather suddenly of heart-failure after a bad attack of influenza, leaving his property to be divided equally between his two surviving sons and their sister. The latter had married away from Rome, and Ugo's younger brother was in the navy, so that he was now the only member of his family left in Rome.
'Doctor Pieri and Giovanni Severi. She made a slight movement. 'He carried me! She spoke almost unconsciously, and a very faint glow rose through her paleness, as when white glass is warmed an instant in the mouth of the furnace and then drawn back and quickly cooled again. 'Shall I talk with him before you meet? asked the churchman presently.
That was what the Princess was thinking of when she heard the distant gate-bell tinkling, and stopped once more in her walk, preparing herself to receive Ugo Severi with an expression of cordiality and affectionate concern. The portress opened the door into the hall and a confused sound of voices came from the passage.
She had scarcely done this when, as she expected, a door at the end of the room was opened. But it was not a stranger that entered; to her unspeakable amazement, it was Giovanni Severi. In a flash she understood that by some trick she had been brought to his brother's dwelling. She was alone with him and the door was locked on the outside.
Old General Severi sincerely hoped Angela might yet marry his son, and was convinced that the best thing possible would be to secure for the latter the first opportunity for quick promotion, instead of allowing him to leave the army in order to find more lucrative employment.
Though he was half paralysed by his injury, Giovanni Severi smiled grimly. 'It would be very amusing if I died with the priests on my side after all, he said, 'and against our good Mother Superior, too! You don't know how kind she is, Doctor; she has sat up all night with me herself!
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