“Then can you interpret these letters bearing, I think, upon the welfare, yes, the life, of my sovereign?” whispers the Englishman. And producing the packet wrapped in oiled silk which he had taken from the body of the drowned Italian the evening before, Guy tells the artist the curious story of the preceding night. His recital is punctuated by vivacious exclamations of surprise, deep interest, and several times by uproarious laughter from his Flemish listener. As the Englishman finishes the painter takes up the conversation. “Ah!” he exclaims, looking carefully at the documents, “you took these from the body of the secretary of Chiapin Vitelli.” Then he adds: “I am one of the few men who could read them. They are in the private cipher used by the secret correspondence bureau of my master, my benefactor, he who pays me my stipend, the man whose hand I kiss—he of Alva!” A strange light coming into his eyes as he speaks of his benefactor. “The reading is very simple when you know the key, which I have memorized and have in my head—I dare not keep it anywhere else.” “Then give me the meaning of these letters!” “Certainly,” says the artist. “You can amuse yourself with my sketches as I look over them.” This he does hastily, while Guy passes the time examining a number of studies in charcoal upon canvas and panels, apparently the work of the young Fleming. At one side of the apartment is a marble slab used in grinding colors, upon it a number of brushes, a palette, and some little bladders of ground paint, such as were used by the artists of that day. Upon an easel stands an unfinished picture of a fair haired, blue eyed Flemish girl of great beauty, though it is of almost the peasant style. This has been sketched after the manner of the Venetian school upon what was known then as the red ground. At the back of the apartment is a large curtain, apparently concealing some more important work, as it is quite large, covering the whole rear of the garret floor of the house. “Don’t peep behind,” says the painter, looking up as Guy’s footsteps approach the curtain. “I have a surprise for you there, I think,” and pausing in his reading, he looks up with a quizzical expression at the Englishman. “Something you will be interested in, I imagine; you could not see the face of the fair one of the barge!” For Guy, in his description of his evening’s adventure, has omitted, with the instinctive delicacy of the gentleman and the lover, any account of his interview at the house of the Countess de Mansfeld, with the lady he rescued. “What do you mean?” asks Chester, eagerly. “Wait for a moment,” and a muttered exclamation of surprise calls Guy to the painter’s side, who has apparently become greatly excited over the cipher letters. Here he stands, impatient, awaiting the outcome of the Fleming’s inspection of the documents. A minute later Oliver looks up and remarks: “I can now tell you in rough form the contents of these letters.”