claim us for trial under the laws of the Republic? Is it a crime for
young people to love, and to run away and marry?'

'You do not know how powerful my uncle is,' Ortensia said.

Pina's face changed at once, and her expression became stony and
impenetrable.

'You are wrong,' she answered in a hard voice. 'I know he is powerful.
But if you fear him, as I do not, then wait and hope! Wait and hope!'

She laughed very strangely as she repeated the words, and her voice
cracked on the last one, with a discordant note that frightened
Ortensia, who was weary and overwrought.

'What is it, Pina?' asked the young girl quickly. 'What has happened?'

The nurse was already herself again, and pretended to cough a little.

'It is nothing,' she said presently. 'Something in my throat, just as I
was speaking. It often happens. And as for what we were speaking of,
there is no hurry. I will find the Maestro Alessandro before noon, and
warn him not to come near our garden wall again, and I will tell him
from you anything you wish, except that you do not care what becomes of
him, for that would not be true!'

She laughed again, but quite gently this time, and began to busy herself
about the room, making preparations for Ortensia to dress. The girl had
laid her head on her pillow again, looking up at the little pink silk
rosette in the middle of the canopy, and she was sure that it had a much
less sad look now than it had worn in the small hours by the flickering
night light. This seemed quite natural to Ortensia, for the familiar
little objects in a girl's own room have a different expression for
every hour of her life, to sympathise with each joy and sorrow, great or
small, and with every hope, and surprise, and disappointment.

But Ortensia herself could not have told what she felt just then, for it
was a sensation of startled unrest, in which great happiness and great
fear were striving with each other to possess her; and she knew that if
she yielded to the fear, she would lose the happiness, but that if she
opened her heart to the happiness, the fear would at once become a
terror so awful that she must certainly die of it.

She did not ask why her nurse was so ready to help her to run away. The
fact was enough. The plan looked easy, and Stradella was the man to
carry it out. She had only to consent, and in a week, or less, all would
be done, and she would be joined to him for ever. If she refused, she
must inevitably become