"I will set out to-morrow, my lord," he said, "and shall be back early on the following day. In the mean time, I must leave my daughter here to do the honours of the city to you and your fair lady; and if she fails in any point, she shall be well rated at my return." Thus saying, he and Leonora took their leave; but the festivities in Lorenzo's house continued long. He himself was present to the last, although his presence certainly did not throw much gaiety upon the scene. To the citizens of Imola he was attentive and courteous, but to the crowd of butterflies who had followed Eloise from Rome, without being repulsive, he was cold and distant. When the last guest was gone, he and his wife took their several ways, she to her chamber, he to his dressing-room; and, long after she had retired to rest, she heard her husband's voice conversing eagerly with Antonio. "Talking over my foibles, I suppose," said Eloise to herself; "I wish I could hear what they say;" and she raised herself up in bed to go towards the door, but she felt weary, and her natural indifference got the better of her curiosity. She sank back upon her pillow, and soon was buried in sleep. The conversation of which she had heard the murmur had no reference to herself. Lorenzo questioned his humble friend in regard to the facts he had mentioned in the earlier part of the evening, and many and varied were the feelings which the intelligence he received produced--deep and bitter regret, some self-reproval, and a sensation which would have resembled despair had not a sort of dreamy, moonlight joy, to know that he had been still beloved, pervaded all his thoughts with a cold but soothing light. He sought to know on whom the suspicions of Antonio and Leonardo fixed as the agent of all his misery, but the good man refused to satisfy him. "Leave him to me, my lord," he said; "I have means of dealing with him which you have not. I will only beseech you tell me how long the great Duke of Valentinois remains at Forli, and to give me leave to absent myself for a day or two at any time I may think fit." "Oh, that you have, of course," replied Lorenzo. "Did I ever restrain you, Antonio? As to Borgia, he will most probably remain a month at Forli. I left him as soon as the place capitulated; for I love him not, although my good cousin, King Louis, is so fond of him. Well, policy, like necessity, too often brings the base and the noble together. But, as the capitulation imported that the town would surrender, if not relieved, in three days, and I know that De Vitry is on his march with three thousand men, which will render relief impossible, I thought I might very well leave this good lord duke to watch the city by himself. He is an extraordinary, a great, and a mighty man, but as bad a man as ever the world produced--unless it be his father." "That will do right well," replied Antonio; "I neither love him nor hate him, for my part, but I must use him for my purposes."