'That is something, although it comes at a time when it can no longer greatly matter. Who is your traitor?' None answered him for a long moment. Saving Stoffel, who was flushed and smiling disdainfully, and the Princess whose eyes were lowered, they continued to stare at him and he began to mislike their stare. At last, Carmagnola pushed towards him a folded square of parchment bearing a broken seal. 'Read that.' Bellarion took it, and turned it over. To his surprise he found it superscribed 'To the Magnificent Lord Bellarion Cane, Prince of Valsassina.' He frowned, and a little colour kindled in his cheeks. He threw up his head, stern-eyed. 'How?' he asked. 'Who breaks the seals of a letter addressed to me?' 'Read the letter,' said Carmagnola, peremptorily. Bellarion read: DEAR LORD AND FRIEND, your fidelity to me and my concerns saved Vercelli last night from a blow that in its consequences might have led to our surrender, for without your forewarning we should assuredly have been taken by surprise. I desire you to know my recognition of my debt, and to assure you again of the highest reward that it lies in my power to bestow if you continue to serve me with the same loyal devotion. THEODORE PALEOLOGO OF MONTFERRAT Bellarion looked up from the letter with some anger in his face, but infinitely more contempt and even a shade of amusement. 'Where was this thing manufactured?' he asked. Carmagnola's answer was prompt. 'In Vercelli, by the Marquis Theodore. It is in his own hand, as madonna here has testified, and it is sealed with his own seal. Do you wonder that I broke it?' Sheer amazement overspread Bellarion's face. He looked at the Princess, who fleetingly looked up to answer the question in his glance. 'The hand is my uncle's, sir.' He turned the parchment over, and conned the seal with its stag device. Then the amazement passed out of his face, light broke on it, and he uttered a laugh. He turned, pulled up a stool, and sat down at the table's foot, whence he had them all under his eye. 'Let us proceed with method. How did this letter reach you, Carmagnola?' Carmagnola waved to Belluno, and Belluno, hostile of tone and manner, answered the question. 'A clown coming from the direction of the city blundered into my section of the lines this morning. He begged to be taken to you. My men naturally brought him to me. I questioned him as to what he desired with you. He answered that he bore a message. I asked him what message he could be bearing to you from Vercelli. He refused to answer further, whereupon I threatened him, and he produced this letter. Seeing its seal, I took both the fellow and the letter to my Lord Carmagnola.' Bellarion, himself, completed the tale. 'And Carmagnola perceiving that seal took it upon himself to break it, and so discovered the contents to be what already he suspected.' 'That is what occurred.'