m the cloister they could see that the big glass door
of the reception-hall was smashed, and that the windows overhead on
that side were also broken. Singularly enough, not one of those on the
other side was injured.

All had felt the certainty that a dynamite bomb had been exploded
somewhere in the building with the intention of blowing up the
hospital. As they fell out of their ranks and scattered in twos and
threes, hastening to the different parts of the establishment where
each did her accustomed work, Sister Giovanna naturally found herself
beside the Mother Superior. As one of the supervising nurses, she was,
of course, needed in the hospital itself with her superior.

'What do you think it was, Mother?' she asked in a low tone.

'Nothing but dynamite could have done such damage----'

She was still speaking, when a lay sister rushed out of the door they
were about to enter, with a broom in her hand, which she had evidently
forgotten to put down.

'The powder magazine at Monteverde!' she cried excitedly. 'I saw it
from the window! It was like fireworks! It has blown up with everybody
in it, I am sure!'

CHAPTER XVII

The lay sister was right. The great powder magazine at Monteverde had
been blown up, but by what hands no one has ever surely known. The
destruction was sudden, complete, tremendous, for a large quantity of
dynamite had been stored in the deep vaults. Today, a great hollow in
the side of the hill and near the road marks the spot where the
buildings stood. Many stories have been told of the catastrophe; many
tales have been repeated about suspicious characters who had been seen
in the neighbourhood before the fatal event, and for some of these
there is fairly good authority.

All those who were in the city when the explosion took place, and I
myself was in Rome at the time, will remember how every one was at
first convinced that his own house had been struck by lightning or
suddenly shaken to its foundations. Every one will remember, too, the
long and ringing shower of broken glass that followed instantly upon
the terrific report. Every window looking westward was broken at once,
except some few on the lower stories of houses protected by buildings
opposite.

Giovanni Severi was in the main building over the vaults a short time
before the catastrophe, having just finished a special inspection
which had occupied most of the afternoon. He was moving to leave the
place when an unfamili