Thus saying, he again darted out of the room, leaving St. Real uncertain whether he spoke in jest or earnest. Determined, however, to know more, the young nobleman started up, and opened the door, in order to call the gay youth back, and question him farther. Bartholo the dwarf was seated in the ante-room, together with another attendant; and St. Real bade him instantly follow the page, and bring him back. The dwarf stared for a moment, as if in astonishment at the command; and then replied, that he knew not where to find Leonard, for that he had seen him enter the room from which the young lord had just come, but had not seen him return. The other attendant was in the same story, and St. Real caused the boy to be sought for in vain. The next morning, however, a greater defection was found amongst his followers, which satisfactorily accounted to St. Real for the magical disappearance of his page on the preceding night. The dwarf Bartholo, and three of his ordinary attendants, were nowhere to be heard of; but, by this time, the tampering of the Leaguers with every class of persons in the royal camp was so great and notorious, that St. Real was not at all surprised to find that five of his followers had been induced to quit his service. The loss of Leonard de Monte, however, he felt more than he could have anticipated from the short time the youth had been in his service, and from the slightness of the duties required at his hands; but, from the first moment he had seen him, the young lord of St. Real had conceived an interest in his page which every hour had increased. During his first deep sorrow for the loss of his father, he had found the boy's attentions so soothing and well judged, his sympathy apparently so deep and true, his few words of consolation so mingling together sense and feeling, that he felt gratitude towards him as well as regard; but there was something more than all this. With all the boy's occasional boldness and daring, there was blended a softness and a gentleness, which, together with the apparent weakness of his slight frame, and a few traits of timidity, approaching to cowardice, rendered him an object of that tender care which always endears those in whose behalf it is exercised. Thus, when St. Real found that the youth had really left him, though he felt some slight degree of anger at a desertion which he was conscious he had not deserved, he experienced no small desire to know the former, and guide the future fate of Leonard de Monte.