t be made to
pay for what she had done in wreaking her vengeance on Pignaver.
Cardinal Altieri might protect Stradella and Ortensia if the Senator
tried to have them murdered, but if he demanded that Pina, his household
servant, should be arrested and sent back to Venice to be punished for
helping the runaways, who would protect her? At the mere thought she
often turned very pale and bent nearly double, as if she felt bodily
pain. For of all things, she feared that most. Sooner than suffer it
again she would betray Ortensia into Alberto Altieri's hands, as she had
almost forced her into Stradella's arms in order to be revenged on
Pignaver himself.

'I have been thinking,' she said after a long pause. 'It would be well
for you to go to those Venetian gentlemen and beg them to help us, if
they will. You need not say that I suggested it, Sor Antonino.'

'Why should I speak of you at all, Donna Pina?' asked the hunchback, a
little surprised.

'Exactly! There is no need of it, and you are very tactful. You will
find out if they suspect anything, for after the affair of the serenade
I am sure that they must have watched Don Alberto anxiously, to be sure
that he had not found out who wounded him.'

'Perhaps I had better talk to Tommaso first. We are on very good terms,
you know.'

'By all means, talk with him first.'

A distant handbell tinkled, and as Pina heard it through the open door
she rose to her feet, for it was Ortensia's means of calling her.

Cucurullo thought over the conversation and reasoned about it with
himself most of the night, and, so far as Pina was concerned, the more
he reflected the farther he got from the truth. For he was grateful
because she was kind to him in their daily life, and he could not
possibly have believed that she was no more really attached to Ortensia
than she was to the Queen of Sweden, and was even now meditating a
sudden flight from Rome, which should put her beyond the reach of
justice, if the law ever made search for her. In his heart he was sure
that she must be as devoted to her mistress as he was to Stradella,
though it was true that Ortensia had never saved her life. But Cucurullo
saw good in every one, and thought it the most natural thing in the
world that a faithful servant should be ready to die for his master.

On the following day he lay in wait for Tommaso near the main entrance
of the inn, where the Via dell' Orso meets the Via di Monte Brianzo,
which then bore