“Very well,” said Nino, resolutely; “let us go.  You will see that I am perfectly ready, although the news has shaken me much; and so you will permit me to walk quietly with you, without attracting any attention?”

“Oh, we would not think of incommoding you,” said the fat man.  “The orders were expressly to give you every convenience, and we have a private carriage below.  Signor Grandi, we thank you for your civility.  Good-morning—­a thousand excuses.”  He bowed, and the gendarmes rose to their feet, refreshed and ruddy with the good wine.  Of course I knew I could not accompany them, and I was too much frightened to have been of any use.  Poor Mariuccia was crying in the kitchen.

“Send word to Jacovacci, the manager, if you do not hear by twelve o’clock,” Nino called back from the landing, and the door closed behind them all.  I was left alone, sad and frightened, and I felt very old—­much older than I am.

It was tragic.  Mechanically I sank into the old green arm-chair, where she had sat but yesterday evening—­she whom I had seen but twice, once in the theatre and once here, but of whom I had heard so much.  And she was dead, so soon.  If Nino could only have heard her last words and seen her last look he would have been more hurt when he heard of her sudden death.  But he is of stone, that man, save for his love and his art.  He seems to have no room left for sympathy with human ills, nor even for fear on his own account.  Fear!—­how I hate the word!  Nino did not seem frightened at all when they took him away.  But as for me—­well, it was not for myself this time, at least.  That is some comfort.  I think one may be afraid for other people.

Mariuccia was so much disturbed that I was obliged to go myself to get De Pretis, who gave up all his lessons that day and came to give me his advice.  He looked grave and spoke very little, but he is a broad-shouldered, genial man, and very comforting.  He insisted on going himself at once to see Nino, to give him all the help he could.  He would not hear of my going, for he said I ought to be bled and have some tea of mallows to calm me.  And when I offered him a cigar from the box of good ones Nino had given me he took six or seven, and put them in his pocket without saying a word.  But I did not grudge them to him; for though he is very ridiculous, with his skull-cap and his snuff-box, he is a leal man, as we say, who stands by his friends and snaps his fingers at the devil.

I cannot describe to you the anxiety I felt through all that day.  I could not eat, nor drink, nor write.  I could not smoke, and when I tried to go to sleep that cat—­an apoplexy on her!—­climbed up on my shoulder and clawed my hair, Mariuccia sat moaning in the kitchen and could not cook at all, so that I was half starved.

At three o’clock De Pretis came back.

“Courage, conte mio!” he cried; and I knew it was all right.  “Courage!  Nino is at liberty again, and says he will sing to-night to show them he is not a clay doll, to be broken by a little knocking about.  Ah, what a glorious boy Nino is!”