"She has been here for three nights and two days."
"Thank God!" Vanno muttered under his breath. An immense relief, like a
bath of balm, eased the pain of suspense. He felt that he had come to
the end of his trouble. After all, what did Angelo or any one in the
world matter, except Mary? He trusted himself to make her realize this.
A few minutes more and she would be in his arms, on his heart, and her
scruples would be burnt to ashes in the fire of his love.
"Will you tell the Signorina that Prince Giovanni Della Robbia has
come?" he said.
The woman threw out her hands in a gesture of apology and regret.
"The Signora will not let me go into the room," she answered, and a look
of sullen ferocity opened a door into depths of her nature where fire
smouldered. She lifted her eyes to Vanno's, and for a long instant the
Prince and the peasant gazed fixedly at each other. At the end of that
instant Vanno knew that this woman hated the "Signora" and her commands;
and Apollonia knew that this man would protect her through any
disobedience.
"Why does the Signorina keep her room?"
"It seems that she is not well."
"When did you see her last?"
"Yesterday morning, Principe. I went then to her room to prepare her
bath, and to take her coffee with bread which I had toasted."
"Was she not well then?"
"When I inquired after her health she said she had not slept. And the
night before it had been the same. She was pale, very pale, and there
were shadows under her eyes, but she did not complain of illness.
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