But from this a ladder rested against
the wooden ceiling, and just above it was a plank that had worked
loose. Messer' Fazio slipped the plank aside, and with great pains
we carried you up through the opening and into the loft. I had
bandaged your head so that we left no traces of blood in the lane or
on the floor below. Then Messer' Fazio gathered up some onions which
were strewn on the floor--I believe he had been drying them there on
the sly--and took leave of us in a hurry. When he reached the bottom
again, he carried away the ladder, declaring that it belonged to him.
"I had brought with me but a loaf of bread, a flask of milk, and one
thing else--I will tell you what that was, by-and-by. I sat by you,
waiting for you to die. When morning came I forced you to drink some
of the milk. The loft was bitterly cold, and I wondered indeed that
you were not dead.
"Towards evening I felt faint with hunger, and was gnawing a piece of
my loaf, when a voice spoke up to me from below. It was a woman's
voice, and I took it at first for Lauretta's--she was the girl, you
remember, who played the confidante's part and such-like.
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