We were talking together in the room in which I generally had my lessons, and my eyes wandered from one thing to another with vague hesitation as I looked everywhere but on the face of this delicate girl to whom I had to tell such a cruel story--for, soften it as I might, the story was cruel and could not fail to affect her terribly. Every object in the apartment photographed itself on my memory with terrible distinctness, and, even after the lapse of years, by simply closing my eyes I can recall the whole scene with the utmost truthfulness. The dull red of the terra-cotta floor, the heavy time-worn furniture, covered with faded green rep, the small ebony piano with its glistening white keys alternating with the black, the mirror-fronted press in which Petronella kept everything from food to clothes, the many photographs of operatic celebrities, and the gaudily painted picture of St. Paul, the Maestro's patron saint, encircled by a faded wreath of withered laurel-leaves and dead flowers, flung to some favourite pupil in her hour of triumph. Even the view from the window I can recall, with the slender campanile tower, from whence every quarter rang the brazen bells, and then the faltering voice of Bianca, "Fiorè della Casa," stealing like a melancholy wind through the silence of the room. "Signor!" she said, twisting her thin white hands nervously together, "you have something to tell me of Guiseppe. I can see it in your face--is it good or evil?" "What does my face tell you, Signorina?" "Evil, evil! your eyes are sad, your mouth does not smile! Oh, tell me quickly what you know! Is he found? is he ill? is he--dead?" She brought out the last word in a shrill scream, with dilated eyes that almost terrified me by the fear expressed in them, and, dreading the effect of a sudden shock on this fragile child, I hastily replied in the negative. "No, Signorina, no! Do not look so fearful, I pray you. He is not dead. Child, I am sure he is not dead!" "Then you have not found him yet?" "No; I have not found him, but I think I know where he is to be found." "What do you mean, Signor Hugo, tell me all--tell me all. See, I am strong, I can bear it--I wish to know everything." "Signorina, the note which Guiseppe Pallanza received at the Ezzelino was not from a friend but from an enemy." "An enemy!" "Yes! from one who wished him ill. Thinking it was from his dying friend, he obeyed the letter and was lured to the deserted Palazzo Morone." "I do not know that palazzo, Signor. I am a stranger in Verona." "I know where it is, Signorina, for on that night I was wandering about near it, when I saw Pallanza go into it alone. Knowing the evil reputation of the place, I followed him, although he was a stranger to me. He went to a room in the palace where his enemy met him, and--and----" "Yes! yes, Signor--for the love of the Saints, go on."