him alone
in a toilet that could only imply great intimacy. The woman's sudden
appearance and her face at the door recalled too well how she had come
back suddenly, on the day of the last lesson in Venice, to warn the pair
that Pignaver was near, and Ortensia could not bear to think that she
could ever have been caught with young Altieri in such a situation as to
make the warning positively necessary for her own safety. Indeed, she
was so much ashamed of it now that she blushed scarlet, though she was
alone, and wondered how she could possibly tell Stradella what had
happened.

He found her sitting before her mirror near the window, and from her
chair she could see the reflection of the door through which she had
entered. When the handle turned she put up her hands and pretended to be
arranging her hair, and in the mirror she saw her husband's face and
understood that he was not angry, though he was by no means pleased. He
came behind her, kissed her hair and then her forehead, as she bent her
head backwards to look up into his face.

'Don Alberto has been here,' he said.

'Yes?' The interrogation in her tone might mean anything, and denied
nothing.

'He came to tell me that the Pope wishes me to write a solemn mass for
the feast of Saint Peter, on the twenty-ninth, and of course I was
obliged to agree to do it. But Pina should not have let him in. Do you
think she would take money? After what he told you about her I cannot
help trusting her less.'

'Do you believe that what he told me is true?'

'It agrees well enough with what she said when she came to see me in
Venice,' Stradella answered. 'Do you remember? Or did I never tell you?
She made it a condition of our flight that we should take her with us,
because, if she were left behind, your uncle would have her tortured,
and she said she could bear anything but that. She said it in a way that
made me sure she had already suffered the question, as Don Alberto has
now told you is really the case.'

'It all agrees very well together,' Ortensia announced, shaking her
head. 'Poor Pina! Perhaps Don Alberto threatened her, for I suppose he
has power to do anything he pleases here in Rome.'

'I will go and ask her,' Stradella said. 'That is the simplest way.'

'No! Please----' Ortensia showed such signs of distress that her husband
was surprised.

'Why not? Do you think it would be unfair, or would hurt her feelings?
Then call her here, and ask her yourself befor