While the Abbé busied himself in causing a carriage to be bought for the proposed enterprise of the following day, and in ordering the swiftest horses that could be found, to be obtained--not from the royal post, by which his course might have been tracked, but from one of the keepers of _relais_, as the irregular posting houses were called, which were then tolerated in France; the Italian proceeded on his task, with feelings in his heart which might well have been received as a reason for abating the price of the deed he was about to perform. To tell the truth it might be considered fully as much his own act as that of the Abbé, for the same malevolent feelings were in the hearts of each; and he went not there merely as the common hired assassin, to do the work of his trade, as a matter of course; but he went also to avenge a long remembered blow, which still rankled in his heart, with the same bitterness that he had felt at the moment that it was received. He met with some difficulty in obtaining entrance to the château at so late an hour of the night; but the letter addressed to Mademoiselle de Clairvaut enabled him to effect that object at length, and he was directed towards the suite of apartments assigned to the Duke of Guise and his family. When he had once passed the two first gates, he met with no obstruction, but wandered through the long dimly lighted corridors, scarcely encountering a waking being on his way, and certainly none who seemed inclined to speak to him. When he had reached that part of the building to which he had been directed, he looked round for some one to give him farther information, not absolutely intending to seek the apartments of Mademoiselle de Clairvaut, and deliver the note, but merely to obtain a general knowledge of how the different chambers were allotted. After passing on some way, without meeting any one or hearing a sound, he saw a door half open, with the light streaming out, and quietly approaching he looked in. There was a boy in the dress of a page, sitting before a large Christmas fire reading a book; but though he walked stealthily, the first step which the Italian took in the room caught the youth's quick ear, and starting up he showed the Italian the face of his former bondman, Ignatius Marone. The man started when he saw him; but recovering himself instantly, he went up and endeavoured to soothe the boy with fair and flattering words. "Ah, my little Ignati," he said, "here thou art then, and doubtless well off with this young Lord of thine." "I _am_ well off, Signor Orbi," was the boy's brief reply; and seeing that the man paused and kept gazing round him, the boy added, "But what is your business here?" "I am only looking about me," replied the man in somewhat of a contemptuous tone, which he could not smother, although it was his full intention to cajole the boy into giving him all the information he wanted, and perhaps even to induce him unconsciously to aid his purpose.