All the bells were ringing gladly, as if to welcome us, for it was Easter morning; and though it is not so kept as it used to be, it is nevertheless a great feast.  Besides, the spring was at hand, and the acacia-trees in the great square were budding, though everything was still so backward in the hills.  April was at hand, which the foreigners think is our best month; but I prefer June and July, when the weather is warm, and the music plays in the Piazza Colonna of an evening.  For all that, April is a glad time, after the disagreeable winter.

There was with me much peace on that Easter day, for I felt that my dear boy was safe after all his troubles.  At least he was safe from anything that could be done to part him from Hedwig; for the civil laws are binding, and Hedwig was of the age when a young woman is legally free to marry whom she pleases.  Of course old Lira might still make himself disagreeable, but I fancied him too much a man of the world to desire a scandal, when no good could follow.  The one shadow in the future was the anger of Benoni, who would be certain to seek some kind of revenge for the repulse he had suffered.  I was still ignorant of his whereabouts, not yet knowing what I knew long afterwards, and have told you, because otherwise you would have been as much in the dark as he was himself, when Temistocle cunningly turned the lock of the staircase door and left him to his curses and his meditations.  I have had much secret joy in thinking what a wretched night he must have passed there, and how his long limbs must have ached with sitting about on the stones, and how hoarse he must have been from the dampness and the swearing.

I reached home, the dear old number twenty-seven in Santa Catarina dei Funari, by half-past seven, or even earlier; and I was glad when I rang the bell on the landing, and called through the keyhole in my impatience.

“Mariuccia, Mariuccia, come quickly!  It is I!” I cried.

“O Madonna mia!’ I heard her exclaim, and there was a tremendous clatter, as she dropped the coffee-pot.  She was doubtless brewing herself a quiet cup with my best Porto-Rico, which I do not allow her to use.  She thought I was never coming back, the cunning old hag!

“Dio mio, Signor Professore!  A good Easter to you!” she cried, as I heard the flat pattering of her old feet inside, running to the door.  “I thought the wolves had eaten you, padrone mio!” And at last she let me in.

CHAPTER XXIII

“A tall gentleman came here late last night, Signor Professore,” said Mariuccia, as I sat down in the old green arm-chair.  “He seemed very angry about something, and said he must positively see you.”  The idea of Benoni flashed uneasily across my brain.

“Was he the grave signore who came a few days before I left?” I asked.

“Heaven preserve us!” ejaculated Mariuccia.  “This one was much older, and seemed to be lame; for when he tried to shake his stick at me, he could not stand without it.  He looked like one of the old Swiss guards at Palazzo.”  By which she meant the Vatican, as you know.