"Per Bacco! chevalier," I said, "you look more of an invalid than I. I fear me, I shall have to be nurse in my turn."
"It is but a touch of the megrims, I have; but you must not think of doing anything for a week."
"Or a month, or a year," I gibed, as I turned over the cushions of the couch, and in answer to St. Armande's enquiring look, went on, "The letter I received yesterday--I am certain I left it here."
He came forward to help me, but with no avail.
"It must have been blown away," he said.
"But I put it under the cushions!"
"True--but you forget you were moved, and the things were shifted. Come to breakfast now, and I will have a thorough search made afterwards."
"Not yet; I will but step over to the convent, and enquire after the Lady Angiola----"
"What! With a bandaged face?"
"It is a wound," I answered coldly, and turning, went out of the villa. My lackey ran forward to enquire if a horse should be made ready; but thinking the walk would do me good, I declined. I was right in this, the fresh, air acted as a tonic, and when I reached the gates of the convent, all the giddiness had passed. There, to my dismay, I heard that Angiola was unable to leave her room, a thing I might have expected, and sending a civil message I retraced my steps, entering the villa by a side gate, and walking towards it through a deserted portion of the garden. I went leisurely, stopping every now and again to admire the flowers and the trees. In one of these rests, whilst I idly gazed about me, my eye was arrested by a number of fragments of paper, that lay on the green turf at my feet. Yielding to an impulse I could not control, I stopped and picked up one of the pieces, and saw in a moment it was a piece of Angiola's letter to me. I lost no time in collecting the remaining bits of the paper, and carefully placed them in my vest pocket. Then I retraced my steps to the villa.