'He is angry with me,' Bellarion explained. 'I had promised to return to sup with him.' He threw back his head, called up into the night in a voice momentarily clear. 'Although the hour is late, I pray you, cousin, do not leave me standing here. Admit me and all, all, shall be explained.' He stressed the verb, which for the Lord Barbaresco should have one meaning and for the too pertinacious watch another. And then he added certain mystic words to clinch the matter: 'And bring a ducat to reward these good fellows. I have promised them a ducat, and have upon me only half a ducat. The half of a ducat,' he repeated, as if with drunken insistence. 'And what is half a ducat? No more than a broken coin.' The soldiers grinned at his drunken whimsicality. There was a long moment's pause. Then the deep voice above said, 'Wait!' and a casement slammed. Soon came a rasping of bolts, and the heavy door swung inwards, revealing a stout man in a purple bedgown, who shaded a candle-flame with his hand. The light was thrown up into a red fleshly face that was boldly humorous, with a hooked nose and alert blue eyes under arched black brows. Bellarion was quick to supply the cue. 'Dear cousin, my excuses. I should have returned sooner. These good fellows have been most kind to me in this strange town.' Standing a little in front of the unsuspecting members of the watch, he met the Lord Barbaresco's searching glance by a grimace of warning. 'Give them the ducat for their pains, cousin, and let them go with God.' His lordship came prepared, it seemed. 'I thank you, sir,' he said to the antient, 'for your care of my cousin, a stranger here.' And he dropped a gold coin into the readily projected palm. He stood aside, his hand upon the edge of the door. 'Come you in, cousin.' But once alone with his enforced visitor in the stone passage, dimly lighted by that single candle, his lordship's manner changed. 'Who the devil are you, and what the devil do you seek?' Bellarion showed his fine teeth in a broad smile, all sign of his intoxication vanished. 'If you had not already answered those questions for yourself, you would neither have admitted me nor parted with your ducat, sir. I am what you were quick to suppose me. To the watch, I am your cousin, lodging with you on a visit to Casale. Lest you should repudiate me, I mentioned the half-ducat as a password.' 'It was resourceful of you,' Barbaresco grunted. 'Who sent you?' 'Lord! The unnecessary questions that you ask! Why, the Lady Valeria, of course. Behold!' Under the eyes of Messer Barbaresco he flashed the broken half of a ducat. His lordship took the golden fragment, and holding it near the candle-flame read the half of the date inscribed upon it, then returned it to Bellarion, inviting him at last to come above-stairs.