“Never, until three days ago; and then she was traced from her room in my house to the post-office with a letter, which she dropped into the box.”

“And the address of which you discovered before she took it from your house?”

“Unfortunately I did not,” answered the little man, reddening and looking askance at the priest, as if he expected to receive a severe reprimand.

But Father Rocco said nothing.  He was thinking.  Who could she have written to?  If to Fabio, why should she have waited for months and months, after she had learned how to use her pen, before sending him a letter?  If not to Fabio, to what other person could she have written?

“I regret not discovering the address—­regret it most deeply,” said the little man, with a low bow of apology.

“It is too late for regret,” said Father Rocco, coldly.  “Tell me how she came to leave your house; I have not heard that yet.  Be as brief as you can.  I expect to be called every moment to the bedside of a near and dear relation, who is suffering from severe illness.  You shall have all my attention; but you must ask it for as short a time as possible.”

“I will be briefness itself.  In the first place, you must know that I have—­or rather had—­an idle, unscrupulous rascal of an apprentice in my business.”

The priest pursed up his mouth contemptuously.

“In the second place, this same good-for-nothing fellow had the impertinence to fall in love with Nanina.”

Father Rocco started, and listened eagerly.

“But I must do the girl the justice to say that she never gave him the slightest encouragement; and that, whenever he ventured to speak to her, she always quietly but very decidedly repelled him.”

“A good girl!” said Father Rocco.  “I always said she was a good girl.  It was a mistake on my part ever to have distrusted her.”

“Among the other offenses,” continued the little man, “of which I now find my scoundrel of an apprentice to have been guilty, was the enormity of picking the lock of my desk, and prying into my private papers.”

“You ought not to have had any.  Private papers should always be burned papers.”

“They shall be for the future; I will take good care of that.”

“Were any of my letters to you about Nanina among these private papers?”

“Unfortunately they were.  Pray, pray excuse my want of caution this time.  It shall never happen again.”

“Go on.  Such imprudence as yours can never be excused; it can only be provided against for the future.  I suppose the apprentice showed my letters to the girl?”

“I infer as much; though why he should do so—­”

“Simpleton!  Did you not say that he was in love with her (as you term it), and that he got no encouragement?”

“Yes; I said that—­and I know it to be true.”

“Well!  Was it not his interest, being unable to make any impression on the girl’s fancy, to establish some claim to her gratitude; and try if he could not win her that way?  By showing her my letters, he would make her indebted to him for knowing that she was watched in your house.  But this is not the matter in question now.  You say you infer that she had seen my letters.  On what grounds?”