i to be got
out of the country, when he was said to be delirious in bed! By day she
thought, and by night she dreamed, that they were going to cut off his
arm.

As the excitement was dying down, John Derby returned from Sicily. He
noticed that Nina looked nervous and ill, but she tried to convince him
that it was the result of late hours and dancing. Besides, he had no
opportunity of talking to her alone, for in consequence of his success,
all who were interested in Sicily or mines flocked to the Palazzo
Sansevero as soon as it became known that Derby was there. The fuss made
over him pleased him, of course; for, after all, he was quite human and
quite young, and there was great exhilaration in being the bearer of
good news. He would not promise any definite amount to the holders of
the "Little Devil." There would be some money, but that was all he could
say. He did not yet know how much. To Nina's delight, he actually got
Carpazzi to accept the position of Tiggs, who had to return to America.
The plant, once started, no longer needed both engineers. And Carpazzi's
tumble-down castle not far from Vencata, enabled him to go without hurt
to his European ideas of dignity to "look after his own property."

In spite of her explanations, John was very much worried about Nina. She
certainly was not herself. Several times he caught a half-appealing look
in her eyes, as though she had something weighing on her mind. Yet she
gave him no chance to ask her confidence. Finally he had the good luck
to be left with her for a few moments alone, but there was a lack of
frankness in her face that he had never seen there before, and she had
an apprehensive, frightened manner that alarmed him.

The question he was almost ready to put, in spite of his resolution,
remained unasked, and he said instead: "Look here, Nina, I don't think
you are well! You're awfully jumpy. I never saw you like this at home.
Has anything happened?"

Nina shook her head.

"Honest and straight?"

She looked at him with a distracted expression that reminded him of a
child afraid of losing its way.

"Jack"--she hesitated; her voice sounded constrained--"please don't look
so--so serious. It is nothing--that I can tell you! Don't notice that I
am any different. Really, I am not. You are my best friend, and the
first I would go to if I needed help."

Yet, as she said the words, she felt with a sudden, poignant pain that
they were no longer true. Her mind was i