CHAPTER V.

Of all the persons who had been present, in any capacity, at the Marquis
Melani's ball, the earliest riser on the morning after it was Nanina.
The agitation produced by the strange events in which she had been
concerned destroyed the very idea of sleep. Through the hours of
darkness she could not even close her eyes; and, as soon as the new day
broke, she rose to breathe the early morning air at her window, and to
think in perfect tranquillity over all that had passed since she entered
the Melani Palace to wait on the guests at the masquerade.

On reaching home the previous night, all her other sensations had been
absorbed in a vague feeling of mingled dread and curiosity, produced
by the sight of the weird figure in the yellow mask, which she had left
standing alone with Fabio in the palace corridor. The morning light,
however, suggested new thoughts. She now opened the note which the young
nobleman had pressed into her hand, and read over and over again the
hurried pencil lines scrawled on the paper. Could there be any harm, any
forgetfulness of her own duty, in using the key inclosed in the note,
and keeping her appointment in the Ascoli gardens at ten o'clock? Surely
not--surely the last sentence he had written, "Believe in my truth and
honor, Nanina, for I believe implicitly in yours," was enough to satisfy
her this time that she could not be doing wrong in listening for once to
the pleading of her own heart. And besides, there in her lap lay the key
of the wicket-gate. It was absolutely necessary to use that, if only for
the purpose of giving it back safely into the hand of its owner.

As this last thought was passing through her mind, and plausibly
overcoming any faint doubts and difficulties which she might still have
left, she was startled by a sudden knocking at the street door; and,
looking out of the window immediately, saw a man in livery standing in
the street, anxiously peering up at the house to see if his knocking had
aroused anybody.

"Does Marta Angrisani, the sick-nurse, live here?" inquired the man, as
soon as Nanina showed herself at the window.

"Yes," she answered. "Must I call her up? Is there some person ill?"

"Call her up directly," said the servant; "she is wanted at the Ascoli
Palace. My master, Count Fabio--"

Nanina waited to hear no more. She flew to the room in which the
sick-nurse slept, and awoke her, almost roughly, in an instant.

"He is ill!" she cried, b