ters amiably, while Regina was out of the
way.

In a garret that had a small unglazed window looking to the north, the
girl was bending over a wretched trestle-bed, which was literally the
only piece of furniture in the room; and on the coarse mattress, stuffed
with the husks and leaves of maize, lay all that the fever had left of
Marcello Consalvi, shivering under a tattered brown blanket. There was
little more than the shadow of the boy, and his blue eyes stared dully
up at the girl's face. But there was life in him still, thanks to her,
and though there was no expression in his gaze, his lips smiled faintly,
and faint words came from them.

"Thank you," he said, "I am better to-day. Yes, I could eat something."

Regina bent lower, smiling happily, and she kissed the boy's face three
times; she kissed his eyes and dry lips. And he, too, smiled again.

Then she left the bedside and went to a dark corner, where she
cautiously moved aside a loose board. From the recess she took a common
tumbler and a bottle of old wine and a battered iron spoon. She crouched
upon the floor, because there was no table; she took two fresh eggs out
of the folds of the big red and yellow cotton handkerchief that covered
her shoulders and was crossed over her bosom, and she broke them into
the glass, and hid the empty shells carefully in the folds again, so
that they should not be found in the room. For she had stolen these for
Marcello, as usual, as well as the old wine. She poured a little of the
latter into the glass and stirred the eggs quickly and softly, making
hardly any noise. From the recess in the wall she got a little sugar,
which was wrapped up in a bit of newspaper brown with age and smoke, and
she sweetened the eggs and wine and stirred again; and at last she came
and fed Marcello with the battered spoon. She had put off her coarse
slippers and walked about in her thick brown woollen stockings, lest she
should be heard below. She was very quiet and skilful, and she had
strangely small and gentle hands for a peasant girl. Marcello's head was
propped up by her left arm while she fed him.

She had kept him alive six weeks, and she had saved his life. She had
found him lying against the door of the inn at dawn, convulsed with ague
and almost unconscious, and had carried him into the house like a child,
though he had been much heavier then. Of course the innkeeper had taken
his watch and chain, and his jacket and sleeve-links and