ent after he had come, and he had fallen
into conversation with her. But it was not necessary to tell this to the
Signor.

The latter promised again to have a thorough search made through the
city for Ortensia and Pina, and wrote down the descriptions Pignaver
gave him. The nurse was described as 'a serving-woman, with grey eyes,
and black hair turning grey at the temples, whose manners were rather
above her station, and who had once been handsome. Age: forty-three.
Mark: the thumb of the right hand had been broken and was distorted.'

'By the thumb-screw, I suppose,' observed the Signor in a business-like
tone.

'It certainly looks like it,' answered the Senator indifferently.

He took his departure after a few more words and went out by the back
door; he then walked in the direction of the Rialto, muffling himself in
his great cloak, of which he threw one corner over his shoulder, so that
it almost covered his face. He had left his gondola waiting in the
narrow canal, and if he chose to come back and take it again, he could
reach it without going through the low building in which the Signors of
the Night had their office, and the city watch its headquarters.

The Signor had promised to continue the search during three days, and to
inform him of any clue he found. Meanwhile, Pignaver thought it would be
as well to find the two gentlemen who had been so highly recommended to
him, and he hastened to the half-ruined Palazzo Quirini. He went in by a
more convenient entrance than the two Bravi had chosen for reasons of
their own, but he found Markos where they had found him, still busy with
his accounts in the bright little vestibule. When the Senator entered,
he had already slipped on the little velvet mask which most Venetians
carried about them in the evening, but the Samian either recognised his
voice or knew instinctively that his visitor was a person of quality,
for he bowed to the ground, rubbed his large hands as if washing them
before serving his guest, and answered the Senator's brief salutation in
a profoundly obsequious tone.

Pignaver now laid one finger on his lips and spoke in a whisper, asking
whether Markos was acquainted with two honest gentlemen named
respectively Signor Trombin and Signor Gambardella.

By an almost miraculous coincidence the two honest gentlemen were at
that very moment supping within. Markos offered to call them out.

'Unless,' he added, 'your lordship is in need of supper, and