Pier-Angelo, naturally optimistic, and reassured by the message he had received, had gone to bed and was making up for the fatigue of the ball like a man who knows how to use time to advantage. Mila had also gone to her room; but she was not asleep. She had passed the afternoon with the princess, and, upon being questioned by her concerning her friends, had spoken of Antonio Magnani among others with a warmth which would have betrayed the secret of her heart, even if Agatha had not been watchful and penetrating. It was the favorable account the girl had given of her young neighbor which had finally led the princess to call upon him for aid in the embarrassment of her situation. She had said to herself that Magnani might well become Mila's husband some day, and that nothing could be more natural, therefore, than that he should have a share in shaping Michelangelo's destiny. She had entrusted Mila with the message to Magnani to come to her that night, and poor Magnani, on receiving the message, had nearly fainted. Should we not rather say _poor Mila_? But Mila had attributed the young man's confusion to his timidity alone. Agatha was the last person whom she would have suspected of being her rival, not that she was not in her eyes the loveliest of women, but because, in a pure heart, there is no room for jealousy of the persons whom one loves. On the contrary, the true-hearted child was happy in the mark of esteem and confidence with which her dear Agatha had honored Magnani. She was proud of it for his sake, and would have liked to be able to carry him such messages every day. But the princess had thought that she ought not to conceal from Mila the fact that Michel was necessarily involved in an adventure in which he might incur some danger, and that Magnani would assist him to defend himself. So Mila was anxious; she had said nothing to her father of her fears; but she had been out more than ten times on the road to the villa, listening to noises in the distance, watching all the passers-by, and returning to the house each time more distressed and alarmed than before. At last, when eleven o'clock struck, she dared not go out again, but remained in her room, sometimes at the window, where she tired her eyes staring to no purpose, sometimes beside her bed, where she fell on her knees, depressed beyond measure, with her face buried in the pillow. At times her pulses throbbed so violently that she mistook the throbbing for a noise by her side. Then she would start and raise her head, and, hearing nothing, try to pray. At last, about midnight, she thought that she heard distinctly a faint sound of irregular footsteps in the yard. She looked and fancied that she saw a shadow glide along the wall and disappear in the darkness. It was Magnani; but she could not distinguish any well-defined form, and was not sure that she had not been deceived by her own imagination.