He looked at Fontana silently for a few moments as though trying to read the man's thoughts.
"What you have told me is very interesting," he observed, presently; "but I do not understand how your daughter comes to overhear what may be said while in the secret passage. She does not, I conclude, spend all her time in the vicinity of Donna Bianca's room; and even if she did, how could she hear through a stone wall?"
"Altro! Your reverence is quite right," returned Sor Beppe. "But that is easily explained, only I forgot to explain it. Every word spoken in certain of the apartments on the piano nobile can be distinctly heard by any one standing in the secret passage if, ben inteso, that person is in that part of it immediately outside the room in which the conversation takes place. It is managed very cleverly. One has only to know where to stand. For example, the passage runs the whole length of the dining-room. That was a wise thought of those who made it, for who knows what secrets the spies of the old Acorari may not have learned? Food and wine open men's mouths. And the room next to the dining-room, reverendo, is occupied by the Abbé Roux as his study. It is there that he and the baron sit and smoke at nights when their excellencies have retired to their rooms."
Don Agostino nodded. "As you say," he observed, "the castle of Montefiano is not a safe place for confidences."
"Or for rogues," added Sor Beppe.
"That depends," returned Don Agostino, dryly. "But why," he added, "did you not warn the princess of the existence of this secret entrance? Surely it is scarcely safe if people are aware of it."
"But nobody knows of it," replied Fontana. "All that the people know is that once upon a time there was supposed to be a secret communication between the castle and the town; and when I was a lad, it used to be said that the prince had availed himself of it for certain adventures, for everybody knew that he had an eye for every good-looking woman except his own wife."
"Never mind the prince," interrupted Don Agostino, abruptly. "Nobody else knows of the passage, you say?"
"They think it no longer exists," continued Sor Beppe. "I have always said that it was built up years ago. It was a lie, of course; but it was not necessary to let people think they could get into the castle unobserved. I forbade Concetta ever to mention it. As to naming the matter to the princess, I saw no necessity to do that. I would have told the principessina of it if I had ever had the chance of speaking with her alone. But Concetta implored me not to mention it even to the principessina. It would make her nervous, she said, to sleep in a room with a sliding-door in the wall."
"Ah," remarked Don Agostino, "you would have mentioned it to Donna Bianca; then why not to the princess?"