"I know the whole history better than even you do, my friend," replied Ramiro d'Orco; "Buondoni did like the sword, but he liked it well anointed, and this Lorenzo would have died had I not cured him. His life is mine, for I saved it for him; but as to how I shall proceed I cannot yet determine. That must depend upon the time and circumstances of his coming; but I have thought it needful to have you warned and prepared in the matter; for on your skill and assistance I rely, and you know I never forget services rendered any more than offences given." Mardocchi made no answer for a few minutes, but remained gazing in silent thought upon the ornamented floor, until, at length, Ramiro exclaimed: "You make no answer, friar; what are you thinking of?" "I was thinking," said Mardocchi slowly, "of what a glorious thing it would be if we could so entangle him that we could make him not only forfeit his own life, but also that honour and renown of which he is so proud. Such things have been done, my lord, and may be done again. I have heard that when Galeazzo was Duke of Milan, he got a cavalier to poison his own sister to save her honour, as he thought, then proved the crime upon him, and put him to the rack. Now, this Lorenzo, if I have heard rightly, cares little for mere life--nay, would almost thank the man who took it from him." "Why so?" asked Ramiro, sharply, a sudden doubt flashing across his mind, like a light in a dark night lost again as soon as seen; "why so, friar?" "If there be any truth," said Mardocchi, fully on his guard, "in the reports brought by the followers of the great duke from France, this wife whom he has wedded is as light a piece of vanity as ever made a husband miserable. Nothing has been proved against her, but there are many suspicions of her faithlessness. She is ever followed by a train of lovers, giving her smiles now to the one, now to the other. Visconti feels the wound with all the bitterness of a proud heart, but cannot find the cure. In the meanwhile he bears himself carelessly, as if he thought not of it; but Antonio Pistrucci, Duke Cæsar's under purse-bearer, assured me that the young man was weary of his life, and that, at the storming of a castle in Navarre, he so clearly sought to lose it that the whole army saw his purpose. What I would infer, my lord, is this: if you give him merely death, you give him what he wants, and he remains unpunished but if you give him dishonour too, you inflict all that other men feel in death, and something more besides." "That were hard to accomplish," said Ramiro d'Orco, rising, and pacing backward and forward in the room; "I see not how it can be done." "We have time to think, my lord," replied the friar; "leave me to devise a scheme. If my brain be better than a mouldy biscuit, I will find some means. If I fail, we can always recur to the ordinary plan."