t the wretch crawls on mother earth."

"Silence, Orazio!" shouts Ruspoli, "or you may go there yourself
quicker than Marescotti."

"Marescotti! Is that the name?" cries Nobili, with a hungry eye, that
seems to thirst for vengeance. "Who is Marescotti?"

"This is some horrid fiction," Nobili mutters to himself. Stay!--Where
had he heard that name lately? He gnawed his fingers until the blood
came, and a crimson drop fell upon the marble floor. Suddenly an
icy chill rose at his heart. He could not breathe. He sank into a
chair--then rose again, and stood before Orsetti with a face out of
which ten years of youth had fled. Yes, Marescotti--that is the very
man Enrica had mentioned to him under the trees at Corellia. Each
letter of it blazes in fire before his eyes. Yes--she had said
Marescotti had read her eyes. "O God!" and Nobili groans aloud, and
buries his face within his hands.

"You take this too much to heart, my dear Mario," Count Orsetti said;
"indeed you do, else I would not say so. Remember there is nothing
proved. Be careful," Orsetti whispered in the other's ear, glancing
round. Every eye was riveted on Nobili.

Orsetti felt that Nobili had forgotten the public place and the others
present--such as Count Malatesta, Orazio Franchi, and Baldassare, who,
though they had not spoken, had devoured every word.

"It is nothing but a sonnet found among Marescotti's papers." Orsetti
now was speaking. "Marescotti has fled from the police. Nothing but a
sonnet addressed to the lady--a poet's day-dream--untrue of course."

"Will no one tell me what the sonnet said?" demanded Nobili. He had
mastered himself for the moment.

"Stuff, stuff!" cried Ruspoli. "Every pretty woman has heaps of
sonnets and admirers. It is a brevet of beauty. After all this row, it
was only an offer of marriage made to Count Marescotti and refused by
him. Probably the lady never knew it."

"Oh, yes, she did, she accepted him," sounded from behind. It was
Baldassare, whose vanity was piqued because no one had referred to him
for information.

"Accepted! Refused by Count Marescotti!" Nobili caught and repeated
the words in a voice so strange, it sounded like the echo from a
vault.

"Wall! by Jove! It's five o'clock!" exclaimed Prince Ruspoli, looking
at his watch. "My dear fellow," he said, addressing Nobili, "I have an
appointment on the ramparts; will you go with me?" He passed his arm
through that of Nobili. It was a painful scene, wh