By this time Regina felt quite at her ease with the pleasant-spoken gentleman, but in a flash it occurred to her that he would think it very strange if she could not answer such a simple question about a young man she professed to know very well.

“His name is Botti,” she said, with no apparent hesitation, and giving the first name that occurred to her.

“Thank you.  I shall enter him in the books as ‘Botti Marcello.’”

“Yes.  That is the name.”  She watched the Superintendent’s pen, though she could not read writing very well.

“Thank you,” he said, as he stuck the pen into a little pot of small-shot before him, and then looked at his watch.  “The nurse is probably just making him comfortable after the doctor’s morning visit, so you had better wait five minutes, if you do not mind.  Besides, it will help us a good deal if you will tell me something about his illness.  I suppose you have taken care of him.”

“As well as I could,” Regina answered.

“Where?  At Rocca di Papa?  The air is good there.”

“No, it was not in the village.”  The girl hesitated a moment, quickly making up her mind how much of the truth to tell.  “You see,” she continued presently, “I was only the servant girl there, and I saw that the people meant to let him die, because he was a burden on them.  So I wrapped him in a blanket and carried him downstairs in the night.”

“You carried him down?” The Superintendent look at her in admiration.

“Oh, yes,” answered Regina quietly.  “I could carry you up and down stairs easily.  Do you wish to see?”

The Superintendent laughed, for she actually made a movement as if she were going to leave her seat and pick him up.

“Thank you,” he said.  “I quite believe you.  What a nurse you would make!  You say that you carried him down in the night—­and then?  What did you do?”

“I laid him on the tail of a cart.  The carter was asleep.  I walked behind to the gate, for I was sure that when he was found he would be brought here, and that he would have care, and would get well.”

“Was it far to walk?” inquired the Superintendent, delighted with the result of his efforts as a detective.  “You must have been very tired!”

“What is it to walk all night, if one carries no load on one’s head?” asked Regina with some scorn.  “I walk as I breathe.”

“You walked all night, then?  That was Friday night.  I do not wish to keep you, my dear child, but if you would tell me how long Botti has been ill—­” he waited.

“This is the forty-ninth day,” Regina answered at once.

“Dear me!  Poor boy!  That is a long time!”

“I stole eggs and wine to keep him alive,” the girl explained.  “They tried to make me give him white beans and oil.  They wanted him to die, because he was an expense to them.”

“Who were those people?” asked the Superintendent, putting the question suddenly.