except Mary? He trusted himself to make her realize this.
A few minutes more and she would be in his arms, on his heart, and her
scruples would be burnt to ashes in the fire of his love.

"Will you tell the Signorina that Prince Giovanni Della Robbia has
come?" he said.

The woman threw out her hands in a gesture of apology and regret.

"The Signora will not let me go into the room," she answered, and a look
of sullen ferocity opened a door into depths of her nature where fire
smouldered. She lifted her eyes to Vanno's, and for a long instant the
Prince and the peasant gazed fixedly at each other. At the end of that
instant Vanno knew that this woman hated the "Signora" and her commands;
and Apollonia knew that this man would protect her through any
disobedience.

"Why does the Signorina keep her room?"

"It seems that she is not well."

"When did you see her last?"

"Yesterday morning, Principe. I went then to her room to prepare her
bath, and to take her coffee with bread which I had toasted."

"Was she not well then?"

"When I inquired after her health she said she had not slept. And the
night before it had been the same. She was pale, very pale, and there
were shadows under her eyes, but she did not complain of illness. While
I was there the Signora came and since then the young lady has not been
out of her room."

"What is that Signora's name?" Vanno asked.

"I do not know, Principe, I have not been told, and I do not understand
the sound of English words, though I have learned a little French."

"Is the lady's husband here?"

"Oh, yes, a very sad, tired-looking gentleman who seems to be ill
himself; but he is a doctor. I know that, for when I offered to make a
tisane of orange flowers for the Signorina to soothe her nerves and
bring her sleep, she thanked me, but said the Signore had got her a
sleeping draught made up the day before, when he went back over the
French frontier. She told me that he was a doctor, and had prescribed
for her."

"A doctor!" Vanno repeated, suddenly puzzled. He had been confident that
the "Signore and Signora" were Lord and Lady Dauntrey. But he had never
heard that Dauntrey had studied medicine and practised in South Africa.
"Where is the Signore now?" he asked quickly.

"He was with his wife in the room of the Signorina a short time ago."

"Take me to the door of that room, and I will talk with one of them."

"Oh, with the greatest joy, Principe. I have not been ha