midnight
In an angle where a part of the walls was still standing , a woman was on her knees , her hands stretched wildly out before her , her darkly-clad figure faintly revealed by the beams of the waning moon . The covering had fallen back from her head upon her shoulders , and the struggling rays fell upon her beautiful features , marking their angelic outline with delicate light . Still Anastase remained motionless , scarcely believing his eyes , and yet knowing that lovely face too well not to believe . It was Donna Faustina Montevarchi who knelt there at midnight , alone , repeating the solemn words from the mass for the dead ; it was for him that she wept , and he knew it . Standing there upon the common grave of his comrades , a wild joy filled the young man 's heart , a joy such as must be felt to be known , for it passes the power of earthly words to tell it . In that dim and ghastly place the sun seemed suddenly to shine as at noonday in a fair country ; the crumbling masonry and blocks of broken stone grew more lovely than the loveliest flowers , and from the dark figure of that lonely heart-broken woman the man who loved her saw a radiance proceeding which overflowed and made bright at once his eyes and his heart . In the intensity of his emotion , the hand which lay upon the fallen stone contracted suddenly and broke off a fragment of the loosened mortar .