Carrying the half-opened packet and the parchment, Visconti re-entered his private room. It was dark and silent; no sound from within or without broke its deserted gloom.
He was alone, nor was he like to be disturbed. Seating himself, not without a furtive glance over his shoulder, he looked at the writing again, the writing and the seal, then opened the packet.
A roll of parchment, close writ, strangely stained in places a reddish brown, fell with a rattle on the floor. Visconti started back, he stared at it, uttered a hoarse sound, stooped and picked it up. The parchment was inscribed with poetry. Here and there among the stains a line was readable.
"Perchance thou wouldst not dare to turn——"
His glance caught the words. He looked around with wild eyes.
A huge, black bureau, fitted with many drawers, stood in one corner of the room. Visconti, the parchment in his shaking fingers, went to it, still with glances around, and drew out drawer after drawer, till he had found the thing he sought. It was among neat piles of parchments, annotated in Giannotto's clear, good hand.
Visconti turned them over hastily, till he came upon a document hung with the seals of Verona, a cartel of defiance, neatly endorsed in a clerkly hand, and signed in large, bold writing, "Mastino della Scala."
Eagerly he turned to the cover of the packet, and laid the two writings side by side. They were the same.
Visconti leaned against the black chest, breathing heavily, his face not good to look on in its white devilry.