V

In an apartment richly furnished, the floor covered with striped and
spotted skins of animals, a lady sat with her arms extended before her,
and her hands half clenched. The agitation of her face corresponded with
this attitude; she was pale and red by turns; and her foot restless.

Presently the curtain was drawn by a domestic.

The lady's brow flushed.

The maid said, in an awe-struck whisper: "Altezza, the man is here."

The lady bade her admit him, and snatched up a little black mask and put
it on; and in a moment her colour was gone, and the contrast between her
black mask and her marble cheeks was strange and fearful.

A man entered bowing and scraping. It was such a figure as crowds seem
made of; short hair, roundish head, plain, but decent clothes; features
neither comely not forbidding. Nothing to remark in him but a singularly
restless eye.

After a profusion of bows he stood opposite the lady, and awaited her
pleasure.

"They have told you for what you are wanted?"

"Yes, Signora."

"Did those who spoke to you agree as to what you are to receive?"

"Yes, Signora. 'Tis the full price; and purchases the greater vendetta:
unless of your benevolence you choose to content yourself with the
lesser."

"I understand you not," said the lady.

"Ah; this is the Signora's first. The lesser vendetta, lady, is the
death of the body only. We watch our man come out of a church; or take
him in an innocent hour; and so deal with him. In the greater vendetta
we watch him, and catch him hot from some unrepented sin, and so slay
his soul as well as his body. But this vendetta is not so run upon now
as it was a few years ago."

"Man, silence me his tongue, and let his treasonable heart beat no more.
But his soul I have no feud with."

"So be it, signora. He who spoke to me knew not the man, nor his name,
nor his abode. From whom shall I learn these?"

"From myself."

At this the man, with the first symptoms of anxiety he had shown,
entreated her to be cautious, and particular, in this part of the
business.

"Fear me not," said she. "Listen. It is a young man, tall of stature,
and auburn hair, and dark blue eyes, and an honest face, would deceive
a saint. He lives in the Via Claudia, at the corner house; the glover's.
In that house there lodge but three males: he; and a painter short of
stature and dark visaged, and a young, slim boy. He that hath betrayed
me is a stranger, fair, and taller than thou art.