ing
wrong, and he now looked at her for the first time and saw that she was
livid.

'I have a chill,' she managed to say. 'I have caught the fever, sir. It
does not matter! I have some camomile leaves, and I will make the
infusion while you wait downstairs.'

'You ought to be in bed yourself,' Stradella said kindly, but at the
same instant it occurred to him that Ortensia had perhaps taken a fever
too. 'To-morrow I will try to procure from the Pope's physician some of
that wonderful Peruvian bark that cures the fever,' he added. 'They call
it quina, I think, and few apothecaries have it.'

This was true, though nearly forty years had then already passed since
the Spanish Countess of Cinchon had first brought the precious bark to
Europe, and had named it after herself, Cinchona.

Stradella was not yet by any means desperately anxious about his wife
when he went downstairs again, as may be understood from his last words
to the serving-woman. He was, in fact, wondering whether Ortensia
herself had not a touch of the ague, which was so common then that no
one thought it a serious illness. He went downstairs with the conviction
that she would appear within a quarter of an hour escorted by
Gambardella and Cucurullo, and he began to walk under the great archway,
from the entrance to the courtyard and back again.

As soon as he was gone Pina went to her own little room, taking the lamp
with her. First she dressed herself in her best frock, which was of good
brown Florentine cloth; and then she took a large blue cotton kerchief
and made a bundle consisting of some linen and a few necessaries. On
that very morning Stradella had paid her wages, expecting to leave Rome
the next day, and she took the money and tied it up securely in a little
scrap of black silk and hid it in her dress. Lastly, she put on the same
brown cloak and hood she had worn on the journey from Venice, took her
bundle under it, replaced the lamp on the sitting-room table, and left
the apartment by the small door which gave access to the servants'
staircase; a few moments later she slipped out of the palace, unobserved
except by the old door-keeper who kept the back entrance and let her
out.

'I am going to the apothecary's for some camomile,' she said quietly,
and the old man merely nodded as he opened the street door for her.

The Bravi had cared very little whether Pina was at home or not when
Cucurullo came to get the objects for which Stradella had