Nothing occurred through the rest of the day to call his attention, or to rouse his feelings. He heard the distant murmur, and the shouts of the people from time to time; but the gates were now shut, and the sounds dull, and all passed on evenly till darkness shut up the world. In the mean time he knew--as if to make his state of imprisonment and inactivity more intolerable--that busy actions were taking place without, that his own fate was deciding by the hands of others, that his happiness and that of Marie de Clairvaut formed but a small matter in the great bulk of political affairs which were then being weighed between the two angry parties in the capital, and might be tossed into this scale or that, as accident, or convenience, or policy might direct. Though he retired to rest as usual, he slept not, and ever and anon when a sort of half slumber fell upon his eyes he started up, thinking he heard some sound, a distant shout of the people, the tolling of a bell, or the roll of some far off drum. Nothing however occurred, and the night passed over as the day. In the grey of the morning, however, just when the slow creaking of a gate, or the noise of footsteps here and there breaking the previous stillness, told that the world was beginning to awake, a few sweet notes suddenly met his ear like those of a musical instrument, and in a moment after he heard the same air which the boy Ignati had played with such exquisite skill just before he freed him from his Italian masters. "A blessing be upon that boy," he cried, as he instantly recognised not only the sounds but the touch. "He has come to tell me that I am not forgotten." Suddenly, however, before the air was half concluded, the music stopped, and voices were heard speaking, but not so loud that the words could be distinguished. It seemed to the young Count, and seemed truly, that some one had sent the boy away; but though he heard no more, those very sounds had given him hope and comfort. Driven away by the old verger, who had now discovered the trick which had been put upon him the day before, the boy returned with all speed to the Hôtel de Guise, and, according to the Duke's order, presented himself in his chamber at the hour of his rising. But the Duke was already surrounded with people, all eager to speak with him on different affairs, and his brow was evidently dark and clouded by some news that he had just heard.