Paul cast one swift glance around the apartment, but failed to discern anything in its present state calculated to inspire fear.
Kneeling by Barbara's side he raised her to a sitting posture, and passing his left arm around her rested her head upon his shoulder.
"Dearest Barbara, what has frightened you?" he asked, observing that her eyes were opening. It was the first time he had addressed her by her Christian name; the word had escaped him quite involuntarily. "What has frightened you?" he repeated.
Like a timid child she clung to him, and indicating as the cause of her fear the life-size portrait of a man hanging upon the wall,--a portrait scarcely discernible in the dim light.
"Take me away," she murmured faintly. "There is something strange in the atmosphere of this room, something that I can't understand, something that makes me fear. Take me away."
As she seemed unable of herself to rise, Paul raised her light form in his arms and carried her down the secret stairway, through the bedchamber, past the wondering Lambro and his consort, back again into the dining-hall whence she had first set out.
She neither blushed nor resisted at finding herself in his arms, apparently not giving the matter a thought. Her fear overpowered every other emotion.
"Lambro," she asked, when somewhat revived by a stimulant administered by Jacintha. "There is a man's portrait on the wall of that room. Whose?"
"The Master's?" she echoed in a tone of dismay. "Have I been living all this time in the house of my enemy?"
"You know the Master, then?" inquired Paul of Barbara. "What is his name?"
"The Master _is_ a cardinal, I believe," said Lambro. "Ravenna? Humph! I have heard him called that by--by some; but it's not the name he usually bears when here."
"You serve a very bad master, Lambro," said Barbara reproachfully.
The old Palicar shrugged his shoulders in lieu of a reply.
Paul here recalled Lambro's remark to the effect that the Master belonged to a peculiar brotherhood pledged to the repudiation of women. This misogyny was now explained. But why should the abode of a Roman ecclesiastic contain a lady's bedchamber kept in a state of preparation for an occupant? Paul glanced at Jacintha as if seeking an explanation from her, but the old Greek had set a warning eye upon his partner, and under that glittering terror Jacintha became mute.