"Of her? No! Mon dieu! No! She is a child! She is innocent! Innocent as——"
"The day! you would say?" the Syndic struck in, almost solemnly. "The likelier prey? The choicest are ever the devil's morsels."
"And you think that she——"
"God help her, if she be in his power! This man," the Syndic continued, laying his hand on the other's arm, "has ruined hundreds by his secret arts, by his foul practices, by his sorceries. He has made Venice too hot for him. In Padua they will have him no more. Genoa has driven him forth. If you doubt this character of him there is an easy proof; for it is whispered, nay, it is almost certain, in what his power lies. Do you know his room?"
"No."
"No?" in a tone of dismay. "But is it not on a level with yours?"
"No," Claude answered, shivering; "it is over mine."
"No matter, there is an easy mode of proving him," the Syndic replied; and despite himself his tone was eager. "If he be the man they say he is, there is in his room a box of steel chained to the wall. It contains the spell he uses. By means of it he can enter where he pleases, he can enslave women to his will, he——"
"And you do not seize it?" Claude cried in a tone of horror.
"He has the Grand Duke's protection," the Syndic answered smoothly, "and to touch him without clear proof might cause much trouble to the State."