a, as if she had been
buried and asked to be raised up again. She tried to sit up, but--she
fell back upon her pillow. Pipa's arms were round her in an instant.
She put back the long hair that fell upon Enrica's face, and poured
into her mouth a few drops of a cordial Fra Pacifico had left for her.
Pipa dared not speak--Pipa dared not breathe--so great was her joy. At
length she ventured to take one of Enrica's hands in hers, pressed it
gently and said to her in a low voice:

"You must be very quiet. We are all here."

Enrica looked up at Pipa, surprised and frightened; then her eyes
wandered round in search of something. She was evidently dwelling
upon some idea she could not express. She raised her hand, opened it
slowly, and gazed at it. Her hand was empty.

"Where is--?" Enrica asked, in a voice like a sigh--then she stopped,
and gazed up again distressfully into Pipa's face. Pipa knew that
Count Nobili's letter had been taken by Fra Pacifico. Now she bent
over Enrica in an agony of fear lest, when her reason came and she
missed that letter, she should sink back again and die.

With the sound of her own voice all came back to Enrica in an instant.
She closed her eyes, and longed never to open them again! "Gone! gone!
forever!" sounded in her ears like a rushing of great waters. Then she
lay for a long time quite still. She could not bear to speak to Pipa.
His name--Nobili's name--was sacred. If Pipa knew what Nobili had
done, she might speak ill of him. That Enrica could not bear. Yet she
should like to know who had taken his letter.

Her brain was very weak, yet it worked incessantly. She asked herself
all manner of questions in a helpless way; but as her fluttering
pulses settled, and the blood returned to its accustomed
channels, faintly coloring her cheek, the truth came to her.
Insulted!--abandoned!--forgotten! She thought it all over bit by bit.
Each thought as it rose in her mind seemed to freeze the returning
warmth within her. That letter--oh, if she could only find that
letter! She tried to recall every phrase and put a sense to it. How
had she deceived him? What could Nobili mean? What had she done to
be talked of in Lucca? Marescotti--who was he? At first she was
so stunned she forgot his name; then it came to her. Yes, the
poet--Marescotti--Trenta's friend--who had raved on the Guinigi Tower.
What was he to her? Marry Marescotti! Oh! who could have said it?

Gradually, as Enrica's mind became cle