te. I could not smoke, and when I
tried to go to sleep that cat--an apoplexy on her!--climbed up on my
shoulder and clawed my hair, Mariuccia sat moaning in the kitchen and
could not cook at all, so that I was half starved.

At three o'clock De Pretis came back.

"Courage, conte mio!" he cried; and I knew it was all right. "Courage!
Nino is at liberty again, and says he will sing to-night to show them
he is not a clay doll, to be broken by a little knocking about. Ah,
what a glorious boy Nino is!"

"But where is he!" I asked, when I could find voice to speak, for I
was all trembling.

"He is gone for a good walk, to freshen his nerves, poverino. I wonder
he has any strength left. For Heaven's sake, give me a match that I
may light my cigar, and then I will tell you all about it. Thank you.
And I will sit down comfortably--so. Now you must know that the
baroness--_requiescat_!--was not poisoned by Nino, or by anyone else."

"Of course not! Go on."

"Piano--slow and sure. They had a terrific scene yesterday. You know?
Yes. Then she went out and tired herself, poor soul, so that when she
got home she had an attack of the nerves. Now these foreigners, who
are a pack of silly people, do not have themselves bled and drink
malva water as we do when we get a fit of anger. But they take opium;
that is, a thing they call chloral. God knows what it is made of, but
it puts them to sleep, like opium. When the doctors came to look at
the poor lady they saw at once what was the matter, and called the
maid. The maid said her mistress certainly had some green stuff in a
little bottle which she often used to take; and when they inquired
further they heard that the baroness had poured out much more than
usual the night before, while the maid was combing her hair, for she
seemed terribly excited and restless. So they got the bottle and found
it nearly empty. Then the doctors said, 'At what time was this young
man who is now arrested seen to give her the glass of water?' The
man-servant said it was about two in the afternoon. So the doctors
knew that if Nino had given her the chloral she could not have gone
out afterwards, and have been awake at eleven in the evening when her
maid was with her, and yet have been hurt by what he gave her. And so,
as Jacovacci was raising a thousand devils in every corner of Rome
because they had arrested his principal singer on false pretences, and
was threatening to bring suits against everybody, inc