"Nor she either, by my hopes of Heaven!" cried Leonardo. "But come with me, good friend--come with me. You cannot see the lady--she is ill; and I have matter for your own private ear. There is some dark mystery here, which I fain would unravel with your aid. I am resolute to sound it to the very depth."
"But how can we do that?" said Antonio; "those who have kept their secrets so well and so long, are not likely to let it slip out of their hands now. These are no babes we have deal with, signor, and if Ramiro d'Orco is at the bottom of it, you might as well hope to see through a block of stone as to discover anything that is in his mind."
"He has no share in it, I think," answered Leonardo, after a moment's thought. "He is a man moved solely by his ambition or his interests; and all his interests would have led him to seek this marriage rather than break it off. Not a man in Italy, who seeks to gain a seat upon the hill of power, but looks to the King of France to lend a helping hand, and this breach between his daughter and Lorenzo tends more to Ramiro's destruction than his elevation. Do you not know some one who has some ancient grudge or desperate enmity towards our young prefect?"
Antonio started as if some one had struck him a blow. The truth, the whole truth, flashed upon his mind at once.
"The villain!" he murmured; "but, to expose him altogether, and to discover all, we must, we must be very careful. I do know such a man, Signor Leonardo; but let us be very secret or we may frighten him. Satan was never more cunning, Moloch more cruel. He was bred up in a school of blood and craft, and we must speak of him in whispers till we can grasp him by the neck. Let us be silent as we pass through the town. There, at your lodgings in the inn, after seeing that all the doors are closed, and no one eaves-dropping around, I will tell you all I know, and leave you to judge if my suspicions are right."
Not a word more was spoken; and as the results of the conversation which took place between them after they reached the "Keys of St. Peter" will be developed hereafter, it were mere waste of time to relate it in this place.
Some words, sad, but true, may, indeed, be noted.
"For our own heart's ease," said Leonardo, "we had better solve all doubts; but yet what skills it? They can never be happy. Lorenzo's rash marriage puts an everlasting bar between them."
"I will not only solve all doubts, but I will punish the traitor," said Antonio; "for, if we let him escape he may do more mischief still. He shall die for his pains, if my own hand does it. But I think I have a better hold on him than that; I will make him over to a stronger hand."
That day came and went. There was a great banquet at the villa of Ramiro d'Orco, which passed as such banquets usually do, and was only marked by one expression of the Countess Visconti when she was led by Leonora through her own private apartments. She was pleased particularly with the beautiful saloon, and the sweet retired garden on the terrace with the steps between.