Calabressa took out his pocket-book, and tore a leaf from it.

“The devil!” he muttered to himself.  “How is one to write in the dark?”

But he managed to scrawl the word “Barsanti;” then he wrapped the paper round a small pebble and approached the fountain.  By putting one foot on the edge of the stone basin beneath he could reach over to the curved top, and there he managed to drop the missive into some aperture concealed under the lip.  He stepped back, dried his hand with his handkerchief, and then went down one of the pathways to a lower level of the garden.

Here he easily found the entrance to an ordinary sort of grotto—­a narrow cave winding inward and ending in a piece of fancy rockwork down which the water was heard to trickle.  But he did not go to the end—­he stopped about half-way and listened.  There was no sound whatever in the dark, except the plash of the tiny water-fall.

Then there was a heavy grating noise, and in the black wall before him appeared a vertical line of orange light.  This sudden gleam was so bewildering to the eyes that Calabressa could not see who it was that come out to him; he only knew that the stranger waited for him to pass on into the outer air.

“It is cooler here.  To your business, friend Calabressa.”

The moment Calabressa recognized this tall, military-looking man, with the closely cropped bullet-head and long silver-white mustache, he whipped off his cap, and said, anxiously,

“A thousand pardons, Excellency! a thousand pardons!  Do I interrupt?  May not I see Fossati?”

“It is unnecessary.  There is much business to-night.  One must breathe the air sometimes.”

Calabressa for once had completely lost his sang-froid.  He could not speak for stammering.

“I assure you, your Excellency, it is death to me to think that I interrupt you.”

“But why did you come, then, my friend?  To the point.”

“Zaccatelli,” the other managed to get out.

“Well?”

“There was a proposal.  Some days ago I saw Granaglia.”

“Well?”

“Pardon me, Excellency.  If I had known, not for worlds would I have called you—­”

“Come, come my Calabressa,” said the other, good-naturedly.  “No more apologies.  What is it you have to say?—­the proposal made by the Cardinal?  Yes; we know about that.”

“And it has not been accepted?—­the decree remains?”

“You waste your breath, my friend.  The decree remains, certainly.  We are not children; we do not play.  What more, my Calabressa?”

But Calabressa had to collect his thoughts.  Then he said, slowly,

“It occurred to me when I was in England—­there was a poor devil there who would have thrown away his life in a useless act of revenge—­well—­”

“Well, you brought him over here,” said the other, interrupting him.  “Your object?  Ah, Lind and you being old comrades; and Lind appearing to you to be in a difficulty.  But did Lind approve?”