'What is it?' the Marquis cried out, shaken also.
'It is the spirit--the spirit!' she stammered, her voice changed to a deep cavernous tone.
'Where is it?' the father said in a whisper.
'In the doorway! Look at it; it is there!' she said firmly and forcibly, staring at the door.
'I see nothing--nothing! I am a poor sinner!' Formosa cried out despairingly.
'The spirit is there,' she whispered, as if she heard nothing.
'How is it clad? What is it doing? What does it say? Bianca, Bianca, pray to it!'
'It is clad in white ... it does not move ... it says nothing ...' she murmured in a dreamy way.
'Implore him--implore him to speak to you. You are free from sin, Bianca.'
'It does not speak ... it will not speak!'
'Bianca, pray in God's name, by His strength and power.'
They kept silence. The Marquis di Formosa kept his whole attention on the door where his daughter alone saw the spirit, his whole soul in prayer. She lay still more restless; her burning hands clutched the folds of the sheet between her fingers.
'But why will it not speak? Why has it come if it will not speak?'
'It does not answer me,' she replied, still in the same voice that seemed to come from a distance.
'It looks at me ... looks at me steadily ... the eyes are so sad, so sad. It looks pityingly at me, just as if I were dead. Am I dead, then?'
'Now it will go away without telling you anything!' Formosa shouted out. 'Ask him what numbers come out to-morrow.'
'I think it is weeping now, as if I were dead; it looks so to me. Tears fall down its cheeks.'
'Tears, sixty-five,' Formosa said to himself, as if he feared someone would hear him.
'Look how many fingers it lifts--look well; make no mistake.'
'Three fingers. It bows to me; it wants to go away....'
'Tell him to come back; pray him to--pray....'
'He signs "yes,"' Bianca Maria went on after a pause. 'It is going away--it has gone; it has disappeared....'
'Let us praise God!' Formosa cried out, kneeling at the foot of the bed. 'The fingers three, the hand five, tears sixty-five; we must find out the number for the dead girl. Let us thank God!'
'Yes, yes,' the girl murmured in a queer tone; 'we must find out the number for the dead girl--we must find out....'
'We will find out,' exclaimed Formosa, laughing like a madman.