Both in the joy of the wedding and the grief at the Duchess's death, none had made more ostentatious sign of sharing than His Highness's brother, Duke Paul. Yet hollow alike were his joy and his grief, save that he found true cause for sorrow in that the Duchess left to her husband a dear memorial of their brief union. Paul rivalled the Duke in his caresses and his affected love for the boy, but he had lived long in the hope that His Highness would not marry, and that he himself should succeed him in his place, and this hope he could not put out of his heart. Nay, as time passed and the baby grew to a healthy boy, Paul's thoughts took a still deeper hue of guilt. It was no longer enough for him to hope for his nephew's death, or even to meditate how he should bring it about. One wicked imagining led on, as it is wont in our sinful nature, to another, and Satan whispered in Paul's ear that the Duke himself was short of forty by a year, that to wait for power till youth were gone was not a bold man's part, and that to contrive the child's death, leaving his father alive, was but to double the risk without halving the guilt. Thus was Paul induced to dwell on the death of both father and son, and to say to himself that if the father went first the son would easily follow, and that with one cunning and courageous stroke the path to the throne might be cleared. While Paul pondered on these designs, there came about the events which drove Count Antonio from the Court; and no sooner was he gone and declared in open disobedience and contumacy against the Duke, than Paul, seeking a handle for his plans, seemed to find one in Antonio. Here was a man driven from his house (which the Duke had burnt), despoiled of his revenues, bereft of his love, proclaimed a free mark for whosoever would serve the Duke by slaying him. Where could be a better man for the purposes of a malcontent prince? And the more was Paul inclined to use Antonio from the fact that he had shown favour to Antonio, and been wont to seek his society; so that Antonio, failing to pierce the dark depths of his heart, was loyally devoted to him, and had returned an answer full of gratitude and friendship to the secret messages in which Paul had sent him condolence on the mishap that had befallen him.