With such doubts as these to haunt me, fretted as I was by my utter inability to take a step in her service, I lay. There for an hour or so in such agony of mind as is begotten only of suspense. In my girdle still reposed the treasonable letter from Vitelli to Ramiro, a mighty weapon with which to accomplish the butcher’s overthrow. But how was I to wield it imprisoned here?
I wondered why Mariani had not returned, only to remember that the soldier who had locked me in had carried the key of my prison-chamber to Ramiro.
Suddenly the stillness was disturbed by a faint tap at my door. My instincts and my reason told me it must be Mariani at last. In an instant I had leapt from the bed and whispered through the keyhole:
“Who is there?”
“It is I—Mariani—the seneschal,” came the old man’s voice, very softly, but nevertheless distinctly. “They have taken the key.”
I groaned, then in a gust of passion I fell to cursing Ramiro for that precaution.
“You have the letter?” came Mariani’s voice again.
“Aye, I have it still,” I answered.
“Have you seen what it contains?”
“A plot to assassinate the Duke—no less. Enough to get this bloody Ramiro broken on the wheel.”