Fabio felt the justice of the reproof immediately.  He tore a leaf out of his pocketbook, and wrote on it, “I must tell you how I honor and thank you for that letter.  To-morrow—­ten o’clock—­the wicket-gate at the back of the Ascoli gardens.  Believe in my truth and honor, Nanina, for I believe implicitly in yours.”  Having written these lines, he took from among his bunch of watch-seals a little key, wrapped it up in the note, and pressed it into her hand.  In spite of himself his fingers lingered round hers, and he was on the point of speaking to her again, when he saw the waiting-woman’s hand, which was just raised to motion him away, suddenly drop.  Her color changed at the same moment, and she looked fixedly across the table.

He turned round immediately, and saw a masked woman standing alone in the room, dressed entirely in yellow from head to foot.  She had a yellow hood, a yellow half-mask with deep fringe hanging down over her mouth, and a yellow domino, cut at the sleeves and edges into long flame-shaped points, which waved backward and forward tremulously in the light air wafted through the doorway.  The woman’s black eyes seemed to gleam with an evil brightness through the sight-holes of the mask, and the tawny fringe hanging before her mouth fluttered slowly with every breath she drew.  Without a word or a gesture she stood before the table, and her gleaming black eyes fixed steadily on Fabio the instant he confronted her.  A sudden chill struck through him, as he observed that the yellow of the stranger’s domino and mask was of precisely the same shade as the yellow of the hangings and furniture which his wife had chosen after their marriage for the decoration of her favorite sitting-room.

“The Yellow Mask!” whispered the waiting-girls nervously, crowding together behind the table.  “The Yellow Mask again!”

“Make her speak!”

“Ask her to have something!”

“This gentleman will ask her.  Speak to her, sir.  Do speak to her!  She glides about in that fearful yellow dress like a ghost.”

Fabio looked around mechanically at the girl who was whispering to him.  He saw at the same time that Nanina still kept her head turned away, and that she had her handkerchief at her eyes.  She was evidently struggling yet with the agitation produced by their unexpected meeting, and was, most probably for that reason, the only person in the room not conscious of the presence of the Yellow Mask.

“Speak to her, sir.  Do speak to her!” whispered two of the waiting-girls together.

Fabio turned again toward the table.  The black eyes were still gleaming at him from behind the tawny yellow of the mask.  He nodded to the girls who had just spoken, cast one farewell look at Nanina, and moved down the room to get round to the side of the table at which the Yellow Mask was standing.  Step by step as he moved the bright eyes followed him.  Steadily and more steadily their evil light seemed to shine through and through him, as he turned the corner of the table and approached the still, spectral figure.