give you the best room."

Maulear quivered with joy at the idea of occupying the room in which she
he adored had slept, and it was with a kind of veneration that he took
possession of it. The room was on the first story, in the right wing of
the villa, and looked on a terrace covered with flowers, and
communicating with all the rooms of the first floor. It was possible to
reach, in two ways, the rooms of the first story--from the interior of
the building, and from the exterior by this elegant terrace. But Maulear
did not observe that night the situation of his room.

The early days of March having been colder than those of February, after
a strange season, which well-nigh had deposed winter from its throne,
and the injury Aminta had received not having permitted her to leave her
room, during his previous visits the Marquis had not examined the
residence of Signora Rovero. The terrace on which his window opened was
therefore completely unknown to him.

For about two hours after Maulear had been conducted to the old room of
Aminta by Signora Rovero, he was so agitated by the events of the
evening that he could not consent to seek repose. Love, hope, and
jealousy, disputed for the possession of his heart. Seated in a vast
arm-chair, near the hearth, the fire on which flickered faintly, the
eyes of Maulear were mechanically directed to one of the windows of his
room, by the beating of the rain against it. All at once he saw, or
thought he saw, a white figure on the other side of the window pause for
a few instants, as if it sought to enter his room. Maulear fancied
himself under the influence of a dream. He rubbed his eyes, to be sure
that he was awake, and that his sight did not deceive him. He hurried
towards the window and opened it hastily. But as he moved, and his steps
were heard, the nocturnal visitor disappeared, and Maulear lost sight of
it amid the shadows of night. For a moment he thought it some aerial
being, flitting through space, and coming, like the _djinns_ of the
East, to watch by night over the faithful believer. But his poetry gave
way to material evidence, and the sight of the terrace, of whose
existence he had had no suspicion, proved that the _djinn_ was really a
human being, who for some unknown motive had wandered across it, and was
by no means so unreal as he had supposed. The idea of crime and theft
occurred to him. He was about to follow the person who fled, when he saw
on the terrace, before h