The news flew like fire around Milan, rousing even the indifferent to some interest. The rumors then were true? Delia Scala was alive? In the market-place, in the streets, in the houses it was discussed--the name of Della Scala was on every lip. But in the Visconti palace it was not spoken. Silent, somber as ever, the castle frowned over its beautiful gardens, and, only by the companies of horse that spurred out of its side gates to fortify still more strongly the nine cities once held by Della Scala and now the Visconti's, only by this could it be told how much the news meant to the man within. Giannotto, walking softly through the corridors, paused and looked out into the garden. Something had caught his keen eye, and he watched, hidden by the curtain of purple silk. A sea of flowers lay spread beneath him, while beyond a more formal part of the grounds, crowned with white terraces and set with cypress-trees, rose clear against the sapphire sky. To the right lay Isotta d'Este's prison, the western tower, a massive building of huge strength, encircled on three sides with a moat, and guarded by soldiers. Giannotto's eyes glanced from the silver banner that hung above, lifeless in the summer air, to the soldiers at their posts below. There was an entrance to the tower near to the palace, guarded, but little used, half-hidden by myrtle that had filled up the dried moat and climbed up the wall; and, as Giannotto still watched, the figure he had seen enter there, hooded and cloaked, passed out again hurriedly, sped between the sentries, who studiously took no heed, and was soon lost to sight along the winding paths. The movement was quick, the figure gone almost as soon as noticed; a casual observer would have taken little heed, but Giannotto's eyes were trained, and he knew the figure for whose it was: Valentine Visconti. "She must have bribed high," he thought. "High indeed. Why should she visit the prison of Isotta d'Este?" He followed her figure across the garden with curious, suspicious thoughts. "She is daring," he mused, "and foolish. Did she think no one's eyes could be on her, when Visconti has spies who are to watch her every movement?" He turned back into the corridor, twisting the ends of his scarlet robe between his fingers, and smiling to himself. The secretary was in a better humor than his master; that Mastino della Scala should live to vex Visconti, that he should have snatched von Schulembourg, one of his dearest victims, back from underneath his very hand, pleased Giannotto, as did anything that annoyed Visconti, save when his master's rage was such that his secretary felt its working. The Duke he knew to be alone. The brief audience he accorded was long over. Visconti had no friends; they, who must, sought him in the morning in the audience-room. For the rest, like the others of his tainted race, he lived alone.