"Ay, I recollect you now," said Leonardo; "but how happens it, my friend, that you are going up to the villa of the Signor d'Orco and his daughter?" "I was going to see the young signora," replied Antonio. "I do not perceive why I should not. I have ever loved her in my humble way, and love her still; for, to tell the truth, signer maestro, I cannot believe that she has ever wilfully ill-treated one whom I love better still." "Nor I--nor I, Antonio," cried the painter, eagerly grasping his arm; "she believes that he has ill-treated her." "Nay, God knows, not that," replied Antonio. "Oh, had you seen how he pined, signor, for the least news of her, or how his heart was torn and moved when his letters were returned with nothing but a scrap of her handwriting, contemptuous in its tone and meaning, you would know at once he is not to blame." "Nor she either, by my hopes of Heaven!" cried Leonardo. "But come with me, good friend--come with me. You cannot see the lady--she is ill; and I have matter for your own private ear. There is some dark mystery here, which I fain would unravel with your aid. I am resolute to sound it to the very depth." "But how can we do that?" said Antonio; "those who have kept their secrets so well and so long, are not likely to let it slip out of their hands now. These are no babes we have deal with, signor, and if Ramiro d'Orco is at the bottom of it, you might as well hope to see through a block of stone as to discover anything that is in his mind." "He has no share in it, I think," answered Leonardo, after a moment's thought. "He is a man moved solely by his ambition or his interests; and all his interests would have led him to seek this marriage rather than break it off. Not a man in Italy, who seeks to gain a seat upon the hill of power, but looks to the King of France to lend a helping hand, and this breach between his daughter and Lorenzo tends more to Ramiro's destruction than his elevation. Do you not know some one who has some ancient grudge or desperate enmity towards our young prefect?" Antonio started as if some one had struck him a blow. The truth, the whole truth, flashed upon his mind at once. "The villain!" he murmured; "but, to expose him altogether, and to discover all, we must, we must be very careful. I do know such a man, Signor Leonardo; but let us be very secret or we may frighten him. Satan was never more cunning, Moloch more cruel. He was bred up in a school of blood and craft, and we must speak of him in whispers till we can grasp him by the neck. Let us be silent as we pass through the town. There, at your lodgings in the inn, after seeing that all the doors are closed, and no one eaves-dropping around, I will tell you all I know, and leave you to judge if my suspicions are right."