is Eminence's nephew.'

'Well, then, you need not make so much trouble about letting me in, my
dear, for this is my own house, and a lady may surely see her landlord
on a matter of business!'

Thereupon he took out a gold florin and tried to put it into Pina's palm
in a coaxing way and with a smile. But she shut her hand quickly and
held it behind her back, shaking her head. Don Alberto was not used to
servants who refused gold. He tried flattery.

'Really,' he cried, 'for a girl with such a sweet face, you are very
obstinate! If you will not take an Apostolic florin, I will give you the
Apostolic kiss, my dear!'

He tried to kiss her, trusting that a middle-aged serving-woman could
not resist the Pope's nephew when he called her a sweet-faced girl. But
she kept him at arm's length with surprising energy.

'You are mistaken,' she said in a low voice, lest Ortensia should hear
her within; 'I am neither young, nor pretty, nor quite a fool!'

Don Alberto suddenly seized her wrist unawares and held it fast.

'No,' he answered, 'you are not a fool, but you are Filippina Landi, a
runaway nun, and though you once got a pardon, you are in Rome now, and
I can have it revoked in an hour, and you will be lodged in the Convent
of Penitent Women before night, to undergo penance for the rest of your
life.'

Pina shivered from head to foot and turned very pale. He dropped her
wrist, and, as if she were overcome by an invisible power, she stood
aside, hanging her head, and let him pass in. For more than a minute
after he had disappeared, she stood leaning against the marble
door-post, pressing her left hand to her heart and breathing hard.

Don Alberto knew the small apartment well, for he had once lived in it
with his tutor, before the Cardinal had left the palace to take up his
quarters in the Quirinal. He went directly to the large sitting-room,
from the windows of which Ortensia and Stradella had listened to the
serenade and had seen the fighting; he tapped at the door, and
Ortensia's voice bade him enter.

She was seated in one of those wooden chairs with arms and a high flat
leathern back, which one often sees in Rome even now, chiefly in outer
reception-halls and ranged in stiff order against the walls. The
shutters were drawn near together to keep out the heat and to darken the
room a little. She had a lute on her knees, but her hands held a large
sheet of music, from which she had been reading over the words of the