But if she intended appealing to the Senator, asking of him no less a favour than to take into his house a sick man threatened with arrest, she must at least offer some explanation of her zeal.

She did not figure among Piero's disciples, and the Senator was in complete ignorance of the past.

But he knew Noemi, for he was the old gentleman with the white hair and the red face who had been present at the meeting in Via della Vite, and Noemi and he often met in the "Catacombs." Jeanne wrote to him at once, stating that she did so in the name of her friend Noemi, who did not dare to come forward.

She described the state of Maironi's health, and the circumstances which, for this reason, rendered it advisable to remove him from Villa Mayda; she did not, however, allude to the danger of arrest.

She explained her friend's request to him, and added that the invalid's condition rendered the matter most urgent.