“I hope so.  She is very strong, and it may be only fever.”

“What else could it be?”

“Pneumonia.”

Marcello bit his lip and closed his eyes as if he were in bodily pain, and a moment later he turned away and went down to Kalmon’s apartment.

The Professor went back to Regina’s side, and stood quietly watching her, with a very sad look in his eyes.  She opened hers and saw him, and she brought one hand to her chest.

“It burns,” she said, almost in a whisper, but with a strange sort of eagerness, as if she were glad.

“I wish I could bear it for you, my poor child,” Kalmon answered.

She shook her head, and turned uneasily on the pillow.  He did not understand.

“What is it?” he asked gently.  “What can I do for you?  Tell me.”

“I want to see some one very much.  How long shall I live?”

“You will get quite well,” said Kalmon, in a reassuring tone.  “But you must be very quiet.”  Again she moved her burning cheek on the pillow.

“Do you want to see a priest?” asked the Professor, thinking he had guessed.  “Is that it?”

“Yes—­there is time for that—­some one else—­could you?  Will you?”

“Yes.”  Kalmon bent down quickly, for he thought the delirium was coming again.  “Who is it?” he asked.

“Aurora—­I mean, the Signorina—­can you?  Oh, do you think you could?”

“I’ll try,” Kalmon answered in great surprise.

But now the hoarseness was suddenly gone, and her sweet voice was softly humming an old song of the hills, forgotten many years, and the Professor saw that she did not know him any more.  He nodded to Teresa, who was in the room, and went out.

He wondered much at the request, but he remembered that it had been made in the full belief that he would say nothing of it to Marcello.  If she had been willing that Marcello should know, she would have spoken to him, rather than to Kalmon.  He had seen little enough of Regina, but he was sure that she could have no bad motive in wishing to see the young girl.  Yet, from a social point of view, it was not exactly an easy thing to propose, and the Contessa would have a right to be offended at the mere suggestion that her daughter should speak to “Consalvi’s Regina”; and there could not be anything clandestine in the meeting, if Aurora consented to it.  Kalmon was too deeply attached to the Contessa herself to be willing to risk her displeasure, or, indeed, to do anything of which she would not approve.

He went to her house by the Forum of Trajan, and he found her at home.  It was late in the afternoon, and the lamp was lighted in the little drawing-room, which did not seem at all shabby to Kalmon’s accustomed eyes and not very exigent taste.  The Contessa was reading an evening paper before the fire.  She put out her hand to the Professor.

“It is a bad business,” she said, glancing at the newspaper, which had a long account of Corbario’s arrest and of the murder of his old accomplice.  “Poor Marcello!”