one of the walls, and a slip of a servant
wench looked out and beckoned him. There was no time to weigh chances.
Tony dashed through the gate, his rescuer slammed and bolted it, and the
two stood in a narrow paved well between high houses.

II

The servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her. They
climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a corridor,
and entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil-lamp hung from
the painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of former splendour in his
surroundings, but he had no time to examine them, for a figure started
up at his approach and in the dim light he recognized the girl who was
the cause of all his troubles.

She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced her
face changed and she shrank back abashed.

"This is a misunderstanding--a dreadful misunderstanding," she cried
out in her pretty broken English. "Oh, how does it happen that you are
here?"

"Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!" retorted Tony, not
over-pleased by his reception.

"But why--how--how did you make this unfortunate mistake?"

"Why, madam, if you'll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was
yours--"

"Mine?"

--"in sending me a letter--"

"YOU--a letter?"

--"by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand it to me under your
father's very nose--"

The girl broke in on him with a cry. "What! It was YOU who received my
letter?" She swept round on the little maid-servant and submerged her
under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in the same jargon,
and as she did so, Tony's astonished eye detected in her the doubleted
page who had handed him the letter in Saint Mark's.

"What!" he cried, "the lad was this girl in disguise?"

Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded
instantly and she returned to the charge.

"This wicked, careless girl--she has ruined me, she will be my undoing!
Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not intended
for you--it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old friend of my
mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance--oh, how can I ever
excuse myself to you?"

"No excuses are needed, madam," said Tony, bowing; "though I am
surprised, I own, that any one should mistake me for an ambassador."

Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena's face. "Oh, sir, you
must pardon my poor girl's mistake. She heard you speaking English,
and--and