Page:Tales of Today.djvu/137

Rh house, hugging the walls in such a way as to prevent any one from securing a fair aim at me.

I was retiring as rapidly as I was able to, quite breathless still, when a man whom I had not noticed, owing to his being behind me, came up and took my arm and inquired with much feeling if I was wounded. I recognized the voice; it was Don Ottavio. It was not the time for asking questions, however surprised I might be at seeing him alone and in the street at that hour of the night. I briefly told him that some one had fired at me from a certain window that I described and that I had got off with a contusion.

"It was a mistake!" he exclaimed. "But I hear people coming this way. Are you able to walk? I am lost if we are found together. Still, I will not leave you."

He took me by the arm and dragged me rapidly away. We walked, or rather ran, as long as I could go, but soon my breath failed me and I was compelled to seat myself upon a stone. We luckily chanced to be but a little way from a great mansion where there was a ball going on. There were coaches in abundance standing before the door. Don Ottavio went and procured one, helped me into it and went with me to my hotel. A large glass of water that I drank having quite put me to rights again, I proceeded to relate to him in detail everything that had happened me before that ill-omened house, from the present of a rose down to that of a leaden bullet.

He listened to my story with his head down, half hidden in one of his hands. When I showed him the note that I had received he snatched it from me, read it eagerly, and again exclaimed: