"He never received her letter, if she did," answered Antonio, in a tone so peculiar that Mardocchi's cheek changed colour, not unperceived by his companion. But Antonio instantly sought another subject, and the conversation was prolonged for more than an hour. The wine was very good, and both drank deep; but neither could persuade the other to pass the bound where the brain becomes unsteady and the tongue treacherous. When they rose to separate, the balance of knowledge gained, however, was certainly on Antonio's side. He had told nothing but what was known, or soon would be known to every one. Neither had the monk in words; but Antonio gathered not his intelligence from words. It was one of his quaint sayings that no two things were so opposite as words and facts. But every look, every turn of expression, every doubtful phrase, or endeavour to evade the point or double round the question, gave him light; and by the time Mardocchi left him, if he had not reached the truth, he had come somewhat near it. True, he fancied that the friar had been but Ramiro's instrument in breaking through the engagement between Leonora and her lover; but that her letters had been stopped, and probably Lorenzo's intercepted, he did not doubt. To a mind so keen as his this was a sufficient clue to after discoveries; and while Mardocchi hurried back to the citadel to tell Ramiro that Antonio would stay out the day, and was about to hire the great Casa Orsina, next to the bishop's palace, for the prefect's wife--that she would be in Imola in a few days, and that Lorenzo's coming was uncertain, Antonio remained for half an hour in thought. "No, no," he said to himself, "hers was true love, if ever I beheld it; and he says she is gay, the life and soul of the place. That is unnatural--she loves him still! And he, poor youth, loves her; and is ever contrasting her in his mind with this light, half-harlot wife, with whom it has pleased Heaven to curse him. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at her--I can see it when she scatters round her smiles on the gilded coxcombs of the court. Yet there must be something more to discover, and, please God, I will discover it." CHAPTER XL. Days flew; the wife of the prefect arrived at Imola; Ramiro d'Orco went out to meet her at a league's distance from the city; no honour, no attention did he neglect; the guards at the gates received her drawn up in martial array; and in the palace which had been engaged for her, at the foot of the great staircase, Leonora waited with her maids to welcome the young wife of him whom she had so tenderly loved.