"You are not giving up your own room to me, I hope?" said Barbara.
"Oh, no, my lady. I do not sleep here."
Barbara stared hard at the speaker. Seeing that the "Master," according to Lambro's statement, was a foe to womankind, it was singular, to say the least of it, that Castel Nuovo should contain a chamber of this description.
Tired as Barbara was, her curiosity would not let her rest, and she wandered about the room asking a variety of questions. Had this been a bridal-chamber, or a death-chamber, or both? Had the mysterious "Master," mourning the loss of a wife or a daughter, given command that this apartment should be attended to every day, preserved in the same order as that in which it was when last occupied? Barbara could extract nothing from the reticent Jacintha, who seemed troubled by her visitor's catechism.
In her course round the apartment Barbara's quick eyes detected a circular piece of violet-colored sealing-wax adhering to one of the walls. She inquired how it came there, but Jacintha professed ignorance. Attracted by an indefinable feeling, Barbara asked that the lamp might be brought near. The wax was situated at a point just where a horizontal band of carving that formed the upper border of a panel touched upon the smooth plain oak above. A closer inspection showed that the wax bore the image of a paschal lamb,—an image, tiny indeed, yet perfectly clear. The wax had been stamped with a seal. Why? Children might perhaps find pleasure in fixing a piece of wax upon a wall and in stamping it with a seal, but as there were no children at Castel Nuovo this explanation would not suffice. If it were the work of adults what was its purport? Jacintha averred that it was not her doing; she could not say whose it was or assign any reason for its origin.
"Can you not put me in another room?"
"The other rooms are somewhat damp. Why, my lady, what do you fear?" she asked in reproachful surprise.
A hard question. It was impossible to link this piece of wax with any harm to herself, so Barbara turned away. The dainty little bed invited her to repose. Why trouble further?
When at last Barbara with a delicious sense of relief had slipped her tired and aching limbs beneath the sheets, Jacintha brought to the bedside a glass containing a dark-colored liquid.
"Only quinine, my lady."