When his figure mingled up with the haze, and was lost to view, I proceeded on my way wondering a little at the incident. I could not help connecting it with the affair in the Secretary's room--the man I had chased up the endless galleries of his house, and the attempt at murder in the Marzocco Inn. Why was I followed? I could not make this out; but thankful that I had escaped with a whole skin, climbed up the winding stairway of the tower which led to my chamber. Carefully shutting the door, I lit my candle, and emptied out the contents of the bag I had received from Machiavelli on to my bed so that the coins might make no sound. CHAPTER XI. THE LETTER TO D'AMBOISE. I could have thrown my cap over the housetops, I could have shouted for joy, as I saw the coins spread out before me. I stooped over them, holding the candle aloft in one hand, whilst I ran the fingers of the other through the clinking metal. There they lay! broad, shining pieces of silver, flecked, here and again, with the mellower light of gold. At one stroke, when my luck was apparently at its lowest ebb, it had turned again, and was coming up in high tide. Not only this, I was to go to Rome, the very place of all others where I was likely to meet D'Entrangues; and I breathed an impious prayer, that good angels might see he came to no hurt until we met, and even as I prayed the vision of that dying woman who forgave with her last breath, came before me. My hand shook so that I could barely hold the candle, and turning away, I placed it on the table and went up to my window. Midnight was long past and we were touching the morning. The only sound that broke the stillness was the distant clang of the martinello, keeping up its insistent beat; but the wind was from me, and the chime came softened to my ears. Already the east was whitening, and the moon was sinking to rest. All the old half-formed resolutions I had made, to let my enemy's crime pass, to leave vengeance in the hands of God, came up and fought with the fierce desire that the apparent opportunity of meeting D'Entrangues again, had fanned into life. What had not that man done to me? How could I forgive? We are all not framed in the same way. A tender woman might condone what man would never pass over. Why should I not be the instrument of God's punishment on that man? Without Him nothing was possible, and if I succeeded in killing D'Entrangues would it not mean that the deed had his sanction? On the other hand, there were the words of Savonarola's text, and the forgiveness I had seen with mine own eyes. Tossed by doubt, now resolved, now wavering--at one time certain I was right to be my own law, at another encompassed by a terrible fear of sin--I did what all men have to do at some time or other: I sank down on my knees, and wrestled with the temptation. I do not know what words of prayer I used, or how long I was there; but I can say this, that when I rose,