"I breathe again," said the princess, allowing the bandit to take her hand in his, and even responding to his pressure, with generous confidence. "Your words do me good, captain, and I bless you for having confidence enough in me to reveal the truth to me. That was my whole fear; but, since the cardinal remembers nothing and the abbé knows nothing, I trust to your sagacity for the rest. Look you, captain, it seems to me this is what we have to do. Do you find in your fertile genius some method of obtaining possession of the will, and see that the abbé is informed of it, so that there will be no further occasion for him to persecute the worthy doctor; then keep the abbé's attention diverted so that he will allow my unfortunate uncle to die in peace. That will conclude by diplomatic methods an affair in which I have feared that blood might be shed over paltry questions of money." "Your excellency goes very fast!" rejoined the Piccinino. "The abbé cannot be put to sleep so easily with regard to another subject, which it is impossible for me, despite my respect, my awe and my embarrassment, to pass over in silence." "Speak, speak!" said Agatha, hastily. "Very well, since your highness authorizes me to do so, and does not choose to understand a hint, I will tell you that Abbé Ninfo, while in quest of political intrigues which he has not succeeded in discovering, has put his hand upon a love affair which he has turned to his advantage." "I do not understand," said the princess, with an air of sincerity that startled the adventurer. "Can Ninfo have been gulling me," he thought, "or is this woman strong enough to hold her own against me? We will see." "Signora," he said, in a honeyed tone, holding Agatha's hand against his breast, "you will detest me, I suppose. However, I must serve you against your will by telling you what I know. The abbé discovered that Michelangelo was admitted every day at certain hours to the private apartment in your Casino; that he did not eat with your servants or with the other workmen, but with you, in secret; in a word, that, when he took his siesta, he rested from his artistic labors in the arms of the loveliest and most lovable of women." "It is false!" cried the princess; "it is an abominable falsehood. I treated that young man with the distinction which I considered that I owed to his talent and his ideas. He ate with his father in a room next to mine, and took his siesta in my picture gallery. Abbé Ninfo did not watch very closely, or he might have told you that Michel, being utterly tired out, passed two or three nights under my roof." "He told me that, too," replied the Piccinino, who always chose to seem to know beforehand what anyone told him.