“Be off at once!” she said, her voice fluttering. “Here is money. Go anywhere to-night--anywhere out of Mulberry. You, Bertino, must not come back until--until I am ready for you. If she saw you it would ruin all. Go! Ask no questions. To-morrow Armando will tell me where you are, and we shall meet. Away!” With puzzled faces and mystified shakes of the head Armando and Bertino took themselves off, and Carolina re-entered at the moment that Signor Di Bello was mounting the staircase to his bedroom. A few minutes before he had taunted her with the failure of her scheme to cheat him of a wife, and proclaimed again the idiocy of the priest and all others who asserted that there was a bust or a husband of Juno. A pretty show they had made of him. All Mulberry was laughing. But his time would come. Next Sunday he would turn the tide, for she would be his in spite of them all. Carolina could do as she liked, go or stay; but a wedding there must and should be, for that alone could save his good name as a merchant and a signore. He had spent a busy night with the flasks of the Three Gardens along with some choice comrades of the Genovese, and the years had told Carolina that with her brother it was always _in vino veritas_. Wherefore she knew that he had spoken naught less than a secret of his heart--that a wish to wipe out the stain of ridicule was an added spur to his determination to marry. And this knowledge sparked an idea that keyed her cunning to its highest pitch. Without an instant’s delay she began to put the idea into practice. Her first move was to keep mum about the return of Bertino, although she had waited up to flaunt in her brother’s face the news that his bride’s husband would stand before him in a few minutes. But the new design that her crafty wits had seized upon made that petty triumph seem not worth while--at least not until the tragic moment she was preparing. Her next step, as we have seen, was to get Bertino out of the way. The corners of her closed mouth curved in a smile of wily content as she watched Signor Di Bello going up to his room in blank ignorance of the little society drama that was in her head. “Good night, my dear brother,” she said. “To-morrow I will begin to make ready for the wedding.” “Good night.” On the morrow she gave Angelica orders to prepare a wedding feast that should be the equal of the one that had gone to Father Nicodemo’s poor. She ordered her as well to keep her mouth shut about the turning up of Bertino, and the same command she issued to Marianna. Neither the girl nor the cook was able to fathom the purpose of Carolina, but Marianna could not shake off a besetting fear that it boded no good for her. * * * * *