San Giacinto came daily to make inquiries and spent some time with the two unhappy men without wholly understanding what was passing.  He was an astute man, but not possessed of the delicacy of feeling whereby real sympathy sometimes reaches the truth by its own intuitive reasoning.  Moreover, he was wholly ignorant of having played a very important part in bringing about the troubles which now beset Casa Saracinesca.  No one but himself knew how he had written the note that had caused such disastrous results, and he had no intention of confiding his exploit to any one of his acquaintance.  He had of course not been able to ascertain whether the desired effect had been produced, for he did not know at what church the meeting between Faustina and Gouache was to take place, and he was too cunning to follow her as a spy when he had struck so bold a blow at her affection for the artist-soldier.  His intellect was keen, but his experience had not been of a high order, and he naturally thought that she would reason as he had reasoned himself, if she chanced to see him while she was waiting for the man she loved.  She knew that he was to marry her sister, and that he might therefore be supposed to disapprove of an affair which could only lead to a derogatory match for herself, and he had therefore carefully abstained from following her on that Sunday morning when she had met Anastase.

Nevertheless he could see that something had occurred in his cousin’s household which was beyond his comprehension, for Corona’s illness was not alone enough to account for the manner of the Saracinesca.  It is a social rule in Italy that a person suffering from any calamity must be amused, and San Giacinto used what talents he possessed in that direction, doing all he could to make the time hang less heavily on Giovanni’s hands.  He made a point of gathering all the news of the little war in order to repeat it in minute detail to his cousins.  He even prevailed upon Giovanni to walk with him sometimes in the middle of the day, and Sant’ Ilario seemed to take a languid interest in the barricades erected at the gates of the city, and in the arrangements for maintaining quiet within the walls.  Rome presented a strange aspect in those days.  All who were not Romans kept their national flags permanently hung from their windows, as a sort of protection in case the mob should rise, or in the event of the Garibaldians suddenly seizing the capital.  Patrols marched everywhere about the streets and mounted gendarmes were stationed at the corners of the principal squares and at intervals along the main thoroughfares.  Strange to say, the numerous flags and uniforms that were to be seen produced an air of festivity strongly at variance with the actual state of things, and belied by the anxious expressions visible in the faces of the inhabitants.  All these sights interested San Giacinto, whose active temperament made him very much alive to what went on around him, and even Giovanni thought less of his great sorrow when he suffered himself to be led out of the house by his cousin.