"I must procure an entrance to my brother's rooms," she said, speaking low over her shoulder. "They are locked. No key will fit them. I cannot force the entrance in the palace. Still I _must_ enter. You are listening, Adrian?" "With all my soul, lady!" Valentine kept her eyes upon the garden, there was no one there to see. The tower was not as yet finished, and so uninhabited; the garden itself was empty; still Valentine kept her gaze before her and spoke without turning her head. "At any moment the Duke may return; or, if he does not, there will be sore confusion I cannot cope with; it must be done." They had traversed almost the whole length of the corridor, and Valentine suddenly stopped. "There, this door," said Valentine, "into the Duke's rooms, Adrian," and she rested her hand against it as she spoke. It was a folding door, opening in the middle, firmly bolted from the inside, and appeared as hopeless as the great entrance to the suite within the palace, though unguarded. Either side of it were deep-set, circular windows, ringed round and round with carving and ornamentation, placed too high to reach and too small to gain admission by. The door itself was of wood, as firm and heavy as iron, clamped with gilded metal, and immovable to the touch. "Does it look hopeless?" whispered Valentine. Adrian would not have said so for his life. "You would force it?" he asked eagerly. "Yes, hush!" Valentine leaned through the low arch and looked into the garden; as before, all was quiet; the life and bustle of the palace came through the front to-day, waiting news of the absent Duke. She turned again with glistening eyes. "Yes, I would force it--and I will show you how, Adrian." Half-way up the door, deep set in the thin and delicate foliage of the carving, were two circular windows, one in each panel. "Can you reach them?" asked Valentine. "I am a hand too short." By means of standing on the base of one of the side pillars of the door, Adrian could easily touch the whole span of the glass. "Now, do I break it?" whispered the page. "Yes," returned Visconti's sister. "But wait, there may be some soldier on hidden guard." She looked around cautiously. "I see no one," she continued. "Now, only through this one arch canst thou be noticed from the garden, and there I will stand, with my open fan; now quick--thy dagger handle." She turned her back to him and raised her hand against the stonework of the arch, her mantle so falling over her arm that anyone, looking thither, could have seen nothing save her figure.