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 other stood at the further corner to the right, a lamp with a short foot, its flame near the table-top. By the shorter lamp sat a woman embroidering. It was not Fabrizia!

At first he did not recognize her. Then, just as he knew her, fourteen years older and stouter, for Epifania Varese, she turned and saw him.

"Ecco!" she said. "Il Signor Melozzo! Entra, Messer Melozzo." She stood up.

Melozzo put a leg over the sill, pulled himself up and vaulted to the floor.

"My lady will be overjoyed to see you, Messer Melozzo," spoke Epifania.

The tattered, grimy specter of Melozzo Carpineti before her eyes had appeared to crouch and shrink away. At her words he flushed a hot brown-red under his month-old scrub of beard and seemed to swell and grow as she watched him. His chest expanded. Fabrizia was alive and free!

Epifania clapped her hands. Presently two pages, rubbing sleepy eyes, entered the room. Epifania gave them succinct orders. At once, deferentially, they conducted Melozzo into an adjoining apartment of three rooms. In one they bathed him, shaved him and combed his long hair. In the largest they set him, clad only in