My convalescence lasted for three weeks, and I found it more trying than the actual illness, for a man in pain has no time to grow weary.  Throughout the whole case I was tended day and night by a strange woman, of whom I knew nothing.  She nursed me with the tenderest care, and I awaited my recovery to give her my sincere thanks.

She was not an old woman, neither was she attractive looking.  She had slept in my room all the time.  After Eastertide, feeling I was well enough to venture out, I thanked her to the best of my ability, and asked who had sent her to me.  She told me it was the doctor, and so bade me farewell.

A few days later I was thanking my old doctor for having procured me such a capital nurse, but he stared at me and said he knew nothing about the woman.

I was puzzled, and asked my landlord if she could throw any light on the strange nurse’s identity; but she knew nothing, and her ignorance seemed universal.  I could not discover whence or how she came to attend me.

After my convalescence I took care to get all the letters which had been awaiting me, and amongst them was a letter from my brother in Paris, in answer to the epistle I wrote him from Perpignan.  He acknowledged my letter, and told me how delighted he had been to receive it, after hearing the dreadful news that I had been assassinated on the borders of Catalonia at the beginning of January.

“The person who gave me the news,” my brother added, “was one of your best friends, Count Manucci, an attache at the Venetian embassy.  He said there could be no doubt as to the truth of the report.”

This letter was like a flash of lightning to me.  This friend of mine had pushed his vengeance so far as to pay assassins to deprive me of my life.

Manucci had gone a little too far.

He must have been pretty well qualified to prophesy, as he was so certain of my death.  He might have known that in thus proclaiming in advance the manner of my death, he was also proclaiming himself as my murderer.

I met him at Rome, two years later, and when I would have made him confess his guilt, he denied everything, saying he had received the news from Barcelona; however, we will speak of this in its proper place.

I dined and supped every day at the table d’hote, and one day I heard the company talking of a male and female pilgrim who had recently arrived.  They were Italians, and were returning from St. James of Compostella.  They were said to be high-born folks, as they had distributed large alms on their entry into the town.

It was said that the female pilgrim, who had gone to bed on her arrival, was charming.  They were staying at the same inn as I was, and we all got very curious about them.

As an Italian, I put myself at the head of the band who proceeded to call on the pilgrims, who, in my opinion, must either be fanatics or rogues.