'No, love,' he said, 'your wet shoes would tell tales.'
'But there is danger!' answered Ortensia, holding him by his drenched sleeve. 'I must know you are safe!'
'When I reach my boat I will whistle softly,' he said.
He was gone in the dark, and she was listening by the open window, her heart beating so that it seemed as if it must drown any other sound. But he made no noise as he crept along the ledge to the corner, and then cautiously let himself down upon the top of the wall, dropping astride of it then to pull himself along in that position by his hands till he found the grappling-hook of his rope. The wall rose perpendicularly from the canal, and he had moored his little skiff to the only ring he could find at the base of it, some distance from the corner.
Ortensia listened anxiously for the promised signal, and peered into the darkness, her hand on the window, ready to close it as soon as she knew he was safe.
But suddenly she heard the sound of oars striking the water, and a yellow glare rose above the wall from the other side.
'Who goes there?' asked a deep voice.
No one answered, but instantly there was a heavy splash, as of a body falling into the canal.
Half-an-hour later Ortensia was lying on her back again, staring up at the rosette in the canopy. 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.