No sooner had Cæsar Borgia's courier departed from Florence than Mardocchi set out for Imola. He was engaged in a somewhat hazardous game, and it was necessary for him to be on the spot where it could most conveniently be played. The one predominant passion, however, was as strong in his heart as ever, and, had it cost him his life, he would have played out that game for revenge. The circumstances of the time favoured all his machinations. There were no regular posts in those days. Communication was slow and scanty. An armed horseman carried the letter of this or that great lord or merchant from town to town, and sometimes was permitted, if his journey was to be a long one, to take up small packages from private citizens in the places through which he passed. It may easily be conceived that, in such circumstances as these, it was easy for a villain, shrewd and determined in his purpose, to intercept what communication he pleased. A flagon of fine wine, a golden ducat, readily brought all ordinary couriers to reason; and the dangerous secrets he possessed gave Mardocchi, even with his lord, an influence denied to any other man in Imola. I may well, therefore, pass over all the details of those means by which he worked the misery of Lorenzo Visconti and Leonora d'Orco. Only two facts require to be mentioned. He soon found, or rather divined, that it would be needful to stop Leonora's correspondence with her cousin Blanche; and after the first two or three, no letters, addressed to the latter, left the castle of Imola. They were, in general, burned immediately; but, in carelessly looking through one of them, the traitor found a few words which he thought might answer his purpose at some future time. Leonora's pride, in writing to her cousin, had somewhat given way on hearing of the approaching marriage of Blanche and De Vitry, and she alluded sadly to her own disappointment. "For once," she wrote, "an early engagement has been crowned with happiness. Oh! what a fool I was to cast away the first feelings of my heart, without knowing better the man to whom I gave them." These words were carefully out out, and when at length a letter from Lorenzo came, sent from Rome by Villanova (the new ambassador of the French king to the Papal court), it did not share the fate of the rest. It was a last effort to draw at least some answer from Leonora; and it had very nearly reached her for whom it was intended, the courier having arrived at a very unusual hour. But Mardocchi was all ears and all eyes, and he stopped the packages at the very door of Ramiro d'Orco's cabinet. "The good lord slept," he said; "he had been exhausted by long labours in the service of his people. The letters should be delivered as soon as he woke."