n
the weather is warm, and the music plays in the Piazza Colonna of an
evening. For all that, April is a glad time, after the disagreeable
winter.

There was with me much peace on that Easter day, for I felt that my
dear boy was safe after all his troubles. At least he was safe from
anything that could be done to part him from Hedwig; for the civil
laws are binding, and Hedwig was of the age when a young woman is
legally free to marry whom she pleases. Of course old Lira might still
make himself disagreeable, but I fancied him too much a man of the
world to desire a scandal, when no good could follow. The one shadow
in the future was the anger of Benoni, who would be certain to seek
some kind of revenge for the repulse he had suffered. I was still
ignorant of his whereabouts, not yet knowing what I knew long
afterwards, and have told you, because otherwise you would have been
as much in the dark as he was himself, when Temistocle cunningly
turned the lock of the staircase door and left him to his curses and
his meditations. I have had much secret joy in thinking what a
wretched night he must have passed there, and how his long limbs must
have ached with sitting about on the stones, and how hoarse he must
have been from the dampness and the swearing.

I reached home, the dear old number twenty-seven in Santa Catarina dei
Funari, by half-past seven, or even earlier; and I was glad when I
rang the bell on the landing, and called through the keyhole in my
impatience.

"Mariuccia, Mariuccia, come quickly! It is I!" I cried.

"O Madonna mia!' I heard her exclaim, and there was a tremendous
clatter, as she dropped the coffee-pot. She was doubtless brewing
herself a quiet cup with my best Porto-Rico, which I do not allow her
to use. She thought I was never coming back, the cunning old hag!

"Dio mio, Signor Professore! A good Easter to you!" she cried, as I
heard the flat pattering of her old feet inside, running to the door.
"I thought the wolves had eaten you, padrone mio!" And at last she let
me in.

CHAPTER XXIII

"A tall gentleman came here late last night, Signor Professore," said
Mariuccia, as I sat down in the old green arm-chair. "He seemed very
angry about something, and said he must positively see you." The idea
of Benoni flashed uneasily across my brain.

"Was he the grave signore who came a few days before I left?" I asked.

"Heaven preserve us!" ejaculated Mariuccia. "This one was much older,