Guido Moratti did not hear or answer him. His mind had gone back with a rush for ten years, when the work of a woman had made him sink lower than a beast. Such things happen to men sometimes. He had sunk like a stone thrown into a lake; he had been destroyed utterly, and it was sufficient to say that he lived now to prey on his fellow-creatures. But he had never thought of the revenge that di Lippo had suggested. Now that he did think of it, he remembered a story told in the old days round the camp fires, when they were hanging on the rear of Charles's retreating army, just before he turned and rent the League at Fornovo. Rodrigo Gonzaga, the Spaniard, had told it of a countryman of his, a native of Toledo, who for a wrong done to him by a girl had devoted himself to the doing to death of women. It was horrible; and at the time he had refused to believe it. Now he was face to face with the same horror--nay, he had even embraced it. He had lost his soul; but the price of it was not yet paid in revenge or gold, and, by Heaven! he would have it. He laughed out as loudly and cheerlessly as on that winter's night when he rode off through the snow; and laying hands on the purse, tore it open, and the contents rolled out upon the table. "The price of my soul!" he sneered as he held up a handful of the coins, and let them drop again with a clash on the heap on the table. "It is more than Judas got for his--ha! ha!" CHAPTER III. FELICITÀ.