The reader stopped to explain that this appeared to be a word equivalent to "blow-hole" in English, used by founders for the opening left for escape of air when the metal is poured in. "'... The _sfiatatoio_ opened under the South Tower in the wall that is flush with the precipice, that one may see the sun blaze on all day summer and winter. None can approach it from below; but Ser Attilio is strong--oh, the strength of his arms!--and he can let me down from the great high tower like a child, and then I hang some little space from the window-ledge. But I swing a little, and then I hold by the stonework, and I am safe and can speak. It is bright in the moonlight and still, and I am speaking to my darling. Stretch out your hand, my love, without speech, and seek not I charge you to hold my living hand, however great the joy thereof, but take from it the file I have made shift to steal from the armourer's boy, who will be beaten for its loss, but whom I will kiss once and more for his reward. _Pazienza, carissimo mio_....'" Mr. Pelly put the manuscript on his knee, and opened his hands out with a deprecating action. "I'm _very_ sorry, Madeline. I really _am_! But I can't help it. It is, as you say, most aggravating. Just as we were getting to the interesting bit! But you understand what happened?" "Oh yes! I see it all as plain as a pikestaff. And, what's more, I saw the very place itself--the great precipice and the Castle wall that shoots straight up from it. An _awful_ place! But _what_ a plucky little Duchess!" "Duchess? I don't quite follow----" "That's because you are so _stupid_, Uncle Christopher." "My dear Mad! Really----!" This was the Bart, and her Ladyship. Because Mr. Pelly wasn't offended. "Well, it's true I said I would tell Mr. Pelly all about it, and then I didn't." She went across to Mr. Pelly, and leant over him, which he liked, to get at the manuscript. "Look here! Where is it? Oh--the old Devil! Yes--that wasn't the Duchess at all! That was her horrible old husband, the Duke. And she was the Memory of his boyhood, don't you see? Oh, it's all quite plain. And my picture-girl's her. And it's no use your talking about evidence, because I know I'm right, and evidence is nonsense." "It certainly is true," Sir Stopleigh said, "that the Castle wall is exactly as Madeline describes it, for I have seen it myself, and can confirm her statement." He seemed to consider that almost anything would be confirmed by so very old a Baronet seeing such a very large wall. "Suppose we accept Madeline's theory as a working hypothesis, and see how we get on. If we quite understand the last bit, and I think we do, what follows is not unintelligible." And Mr. Pelly continued reading: