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But her face was distorted with horror now, and was whiter than the pillow itself. In the day-room, by the light of Ortensia's little lamp, Pina was on her knees, carefully mopping up the water that had run down from Stradella's clothes, and drying the marble floor. Soon after sunrise the Senator came and unlocked the doors of Ortensia's day-room.
He was just concluding an air of Stradella's, in which the melody and instrumentation alike were perfect, and in which a simple yet stately grandeur alternated with the most touching plaintiveness, when he became aware that some one near to him was sobbing violently. It was not Marguerite, that was certain, though a tear did just then drop on the hand that touched the harpsichord so charmingly.
For Christina was almost always engaged in some intrigue, if not in actual conspiracy, and though her dealings of this kind were as futile as her whole life had been, it was as well that the Papal Government should know what she was really about. A week before the Feast of Saint John, Ortensia was already packing her own and Stradella's belongings for the journey to Naples.
'Besides, you will have to trust your husband to settle matters with Don Alberto without you. He is far more likely to be prudent if they meet alone than if you are beside him Ortensia's face fell, for she saw that Trombin did not mean to let her leave the house at once. 'But Don Alberto can do anything, she pleaded, with clear foresight of Stradella's temper and consequent danger.
A day would soon pass, Ferrara was a fine town, well worth seeing, and he could go on to-morrow morning in the Bologna coach, which would arrive from that city at noon to-day. Clearly there was not the smallest possibility of being able to get on during the next twenty-four hours. Stradella's face was very grave as he turned away, and Cucurullo was paler than before.
It was therefore arranged that Ortensia and Pina should go to the church at that hour on pretence of confession. At the monument of Pietro Bernardini, near the main entrance, Stradella's hunchback servant would be waiting for them with two brown cloaks and hoods, which they were to put on immediately.
"Will you sing Stradella's 'Chanson d'Eglise' or will you sing Schubert's 'Ave Maria'? Nothing is more beautiful than that." "I will sing the 'Ave Maria." The nun sat down to play it, but she had not played many bars when Evelyn interrupted her. "The intention of the single note, dear Sister, the octave you are striking now, has always seemed to me like a distant bell heard in the evening.
She sang Stradella's Chanson D'Eglise, and Lucy could hardly speak when we came out of church.
The monk fell on his knees and breathed out piercing supplications. Every nerve and fibre within him seemed tense with his agony of prayer. It was not the outcry for purity and peace, not a tender longing for forgiveness, not a filial remorse for sin, but the nervous anguish of him who shrieks in the immediate apprehension of an unendurable torture. It was the cry of a man upon the rack, the despairing scream of him who feels himself sinking in a burning dwelling. Such anguish has found an utterance in Stradella's celebrated "Piet
"Yes," she said when she had finished, "but you are very much mistaken, the air is mine, and I have made you believe it was Stradella's." "It is yours?" "Yes, and I told you it was by Stradella in order to see what you would say of it. I never play my own music when I happen to compose any; but I wanted to try it with you, and you see it has succeeded since you were deceived."
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