She could not but hear, from time to time, sounds of mirth and gaiety in the adjoining garden, or even through the solid partition-wall of the house.

Voices that she knew only too well, and some that she hated, penetrated to her ears and drove her from one room to another.
In due time, however, the malarial fever of the Italian summer came to her as another distraction.

It was an intermittent fever, and for six weeks she was subject to its periodical attacks, which returned every third day with the constancy of a devoted lover.

When at length she began to mend, her physician prescribed a change of air.

Knowing that his patient could not absent herself from Rome and its vicinity, he did not send her to Switzerland, but to Tivoli and Monte Mario; and even before venturing on these brief excursions she was obliged to ask permission at the Vatican.