anyone seen you enter the house?" I enquired.

"No; and if we had been seen, what of it? It is only an abbe. We now pass
every night together."

"I congratulate you."

"The servant is our friend; she has consented to follow us, and all our
arrangements are completed."

"I wish you every happiness. Adieu. I beg you to leave me."

Three or four days after that visit, as I was walking with the Abbe Gama
towards the Villa Medicis, he told me deliberately that there would be an
execution during the night in the Piazza di Spagna.

"What kind of execution?"

"The bargello or his lieutenant will come to execute some 'ordine
santissimo', or to visit some suspicious dwelling in order to arrest and
carry off some person who does not expect anything of the sort."

"How do you know it?"

"His eminence has to know it, for the Pope would not venture to encroach
upon his jurisdiction without asking his permission."

"And his eminence has given it?"

"Yes, one of the Holy Father's auditors came for that purpose this
morning."

"But the cardinal might have refused?"

"Of course; but such a permission is never denied."

"And if the person to be arrested happened to be under the protection of
the cardinal--what then?"

"His eminence would give timely warning to that person."

We changed the conversation, but the news had disturbed me. I fancied
that the execution threatened Barbara and her lover, for her father's
house was under the Spanish jurisdiction. I tried to see the young man
but I could not succeed in meeting him, and I was afraid lest a visit at
his home or at M. Dalacqua's dwelling might implicate me. Yet it is
certain that this last consideration would not have stopped me if I had
been positively sure that they were threatened; had I felt satisfied of
their danger, I would have braved everything.

About midnight, as I was ready to go to bed, and just as I was opening my
door to take the key from outside, an abbe rushed panting into my room
and threw himself on a chair. It was Barbara; I guessed what had taken
place, and, foreseeing all the evil consequences her visit might have for
me, deeply annoyed and very anxious, I upbraided her for having taken
refuge in my room, and entreated her to go away.

Fool that I was! Knowing that I was only ruining myself without any
chance of saving her, I ought to have compelled her to leave my room, I
ought to have called for the servants if she had refused to withdraw.