In the meantime Leonora was growing impatient in her hotel room.  Three hours had gone by.  To relieve her nervousness she sat down behind the green curtain at the window watching pedestrians crossing the square.

How like a small piazza of old Florence this place was, with its stately aristocratic residences, shrouded in imposing gloom; it’s grass-grown, cobblestone pavements hot from the sun; its sleepy solitude:  an occasional woman, or a priest, or a tourist,—­and you could hear their footsteps even when they were far away!  Here was a curious corner of the Palacio de Dos Agnas—­panels of jasper stucco with a leaf design on the mouldings!  That talking came from the drivers gathered in the hotel door—­the innkeeper and the servants were setting the chairs out on the sidewalk as if they were back at home—­in a small Italian town!  Behind the roof opposite, the sunlight was gradually fading, growing paler and softer every moment.

She looked at her watch.  Six o’clock!  Where on earth could that Rafael have gone?  They were going to lose the train.  In order to waste no time, she ordered Beppa to have everything in readiness for departure.  She packed her toilet articles; then closed her trunks, casting an inquiring glance over the room with the uneasiness of a hasty leave-taking.  On an armchair near the window she laid her traveling coat, then her hand-bag, and her hat and veil.  They would have to run the moment Rafael came in.  He would probably be very tired and nervous from returning so late.

But Rafael did not come!...  She felt an impulse to go out and look for him; but where?  She had not been in Valencia since she was a child.  She had forgotten the streets.  Then she might actually pass Rafael on the way without knowing it, and wander aimlessly about while he would be waiting for her at the hotel.  No.  It would be better to stay there!

It was now dusk and the hotel-room was virtually dark.  She went to the window again, trembling with impatience, filled with all the gloom of the violet light that was falling from the sky with a few red streaks from the sunset.  They would surely lose the train now!  They would have to wait until the next day.  That was a disappointment!  They might have trouble in getting away!

She whirled nervously about as she heard someone calling from the corridor.

“Madame, madame, a letter for you!”

A letter for her!...  She snatched it feverishly from the bell-boy’s hand, while Beppa, seated on a trunk, looked on vacantly, without expression.

She began to tremble violently.  The thought of Hans Keller, the ungrateful artist, suddenly rose in her memory.  She looked for a candle on the chiffonier.  There was none.  Finally she went to the balcony and tried to read the letter in the little light there was.

It was his handwriting on the envelope—­but tortuous, labored, as if it were the product of a painful effort.  She felt all her blood rush back upon her heart.  Madly she tore the letter open, and read with the haste of a person anxious to drain the cup of bitterness at a single draught, skipping a line here and a line there, taking in only the significant words.