A man entered bowing and scraping. It was such a figure as crowds seem made of; short hair, roundish head, plain, but decent clothes; features neither comely nor forbidding. Nothing to remark in him but a singularly restless eye.
After a profusion of bows he stood opposite the lady, and awaited her pleasure.
"They have told you for what you are wanted."
"Yes, signora."
"Did those who spoke to you agree as to what you are to receive?"
"Yes, signora. 'Tis the full price; and purchases the greater vendetta: unless of your benevolence you choose to content yourself with the lesser."
"I understand you not," said the lady.
"Ah; this is the signora's first. The lesser vendetta, lady, is the death of the body only. We watch our man come out of a church; or take him in an innocent hour; and so deal with him. In the greater vendetta we watch him, and catch him hot from some unrepented sin, and so slay his soul as well as his body. But this vendetta is not so run upon now as it was a few years ago."
"Man, silence me his tongue, and let his treasonable heart beat no more. But his soul I have no feud with."
"So be it, signora. He who spoke to me knew not the man, nor his name, nor his abode. From whom shall I learn these?"