"But," she said timidly, "will not Messer Basterga give it to you? Or sell it to you?" "Give it to me? Sell it to me? He?" Blondel's hands flew out and clawed the air as if he had the Paduan before him, and would tear it from him. "He give it me? No, he will not. Nor sell it! He is keeping it for the Grand Duke! The Grand Duke? Curse him; why should he escape more than another?" Anne stared. Was she dreaming or had her brain given way? Or was this really Messer Blondel the austere Syndic, this man standing before her, shaking in his limbs as he poured forth this strange farrago of _remedia_ and scholars and princes and the rest? Or if she were not mad was he mad? Or could there be truth, any truth, any fact in the medley? His clammy face, his trembling hands, answered for his belief in it. But could there be such a thing in nature as this of which he spoke? She had heard of panaceas, things which cured all ills alike; but hitherto they had found no place in her simple creed. Yet that he believed she could not doubt; and how much more he knew than she did! Such things might be; in the cabinets of princes, perhaps, purchasable by a huge fortune and by the labour, the engrossment, the devotion of a life. She did not know; and for him his acts spoke. "It was this that Louis Gentilis was seeking?" she murmured. "What else?" he retorted, opening and shutting his hands. "Had I told him the truth, as I have told you, the thing had been in my grasp now!" "But are you sure," she ventured to ask with respect, "that it will do these things, Messer Blondel?" He flung up his hands in a gesture of impatience. "And more! And more!" he cried. "It is life and strength, I tell you! Health and youth! For body or mind, for the old or the young! But enough! Enough, girl!" he resumed in an altered tone, a tone grown peremptory and urgent. "Get it me! Do you hear? Stand no longer talking! At any moment they may return, and--and it may be too late." Too late! It was too late already. The door shook even as he spoke under an angry summons. As he stiffened where he stood, his eyes fixed upon it, his hand still pointing her to his bidding, a face showed white at the window and vanished again. An instant he imagined it Basterga's; and hand, voice, eyes, all hung frozen. Then he saw his mistake--to whomsoever the face belonged, it was not Basterga's; and finding voice and breath again, "Quick!" he muttered fiercely, "do you hear, girl? Get it! Get it before they enter!"