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178 himself up to the ruins of the castle as if he were afraid to hurt the loved body through the heavy layer of stone and masonry which covered it.

So he worked with superhuman strength, tearing off wood and metal like so much paper, lifting massive blocks of smooth marble and coarse grained granite, and tossing them over his shoulder as if they were pebbles, attacking with his bare hands beams studded with rusty nails and other beams still smoldering and hot.

Hour after hour he worked, stopping now and then to call "Laetitia! Laetitia!"

And when the young sun boomed up in the west he was still there, tearing, jerking, lifting, clawing, pushing—with his naked, frenzied hands, while the pulverized plaster ran through his fingers like water, and while occasionally a stone which he had braced up with terrible effort tumbled back into place—crushing him, wounding him.

Quite suddenly there was a shifting and heaving among the ruins. He saw that his labors had displaced a large mass of stones and masonry which slid to one side with a protesting rumble.

A hole, black, mysterious, yawned at his feet and,