"Nothing your reverence," she answered. "I saw the signorina, and spoke to her, not ten minutes before I found her lying in the doorway."
"Had any one seen her?"
"No one."
"I sent a letter to her from Count Nobili. Did you see the messenger arrive?"
"No; I was cleaning in the upper story. He might have come and gone, and I not seen him."
"I heard of no letter," put in the bewildered Trenta. "What letter? No one mentioned a letter."
"Possibly," answered Fra Pacifico, in his quiet, impassible way, "but there was a letter." He turned again to interrogate Pipa. "Then the signorina must have taken the letter herself." Slightly raising his eyebrows, a sudden light came into his eyes. "That letter has done this. What can Nobili have said to her? Did you see any letter beside her, Pipa, when she fell?"
Pipa rose up from the corner where she had been kneeling, raised the sheet, and pointed to a paper clasped in Enrica's hand. As she did so, Pipa pressed her warm lips upon the colorless little hand. She would have covered the hand again to keep it warm, but Fra Pacifico stopped her.
"We must see that letter; it is absolutely needful—I her confessor, and you, cavaliere, Enrica's best friend; indeed, her only friend."
At a touch of his strong hand the letter fell from Enrica's fingers, though they clung to it convulsively.