'No. Why should they?'

'Then you care nothing for me!'

'I think you talk idly.'

She spoke gravely, with the shadow of some reproach for the first time upon her face.

'Oh, you care—as saints care for sinners, as wood nymphs cared for mortals! What is that?'

She might have said to him 'it is your life at least;' but she answered nothing. She took her hand from the hold of his fingers, and alike without haste and without hesitation passed into the chamber where the dead body of Joconda still gave her its defence, as the sense of holiness in a consecrated place protects the jewels and the silver of an altar from bold hands and covetous eyes.