horror of the punishment in which he might involve the innocent.

"I don't know!" he stammered at last, and almost incoherently. "I know
nothing! Don't ask me! God grant it be not so!" And he covered his face.

"Amen! Amen, indeed," Blondel answered gravely. "But now for the woman,
over whom you said he had power?"

"I said?"

"Aye, you, a minute ago! Who is she? Is she one of the household? Come,
young man, you must answer me," the Syndic continued with severity
proportioned to the other's hesitation. "I know much, and a little more
light may enable us to act and to bring the guilty to punishment. Does
she live in the house?"

Only the darkness hid Claude's pallor. "There is a woman," he muttered
reluctantly, "who lives in the house. But I know nothing! I have no
proof! Nothing, nothing!"

"But you suspect! You suspect, young man," the Syndic continued, eyeing
him sternly, "and suspecting you would leave her in the clutches of the
devil whose she must become, body and soul! For shame!"

"But I do not believe it!" Claude cried fiercely. "I do not believe it!"

"Of her?"

"Of her? No! _Mon dieu!_ No! She is a child! She is innocent! Innocent
as----"

"The day! you would say?" the Syndic struck in, almost solemnly. "The
likelier prey? The choicest are ever the devil's morsels."

"And you think that she----"

"God help her, if she be in his power! This man," the Syndic continued,
laying his hand on the other's arm, "has ruined hundreds by his secret
arts, by his foul practices, by his sorceries. He has made Venice too
hot for him. In Padua they will have him no more. Genoa has driven him
forth. If you doubt this character of him there is an easy proof; for it
is whispered, nay, it is almost certain, in what his power lies. Do you
know his room?"

"No."

"No?" in a tone of dismay. "But is it not on a level with yours?"

"No," Claude answered, shivering; "it is over mine."

"No matter, there is an easy mode of proving him," the Syndic replied;
and despite himself his tone was eager. "If he be the man they say he
is, there is in his room a box of steel chained to the wall. It contains
the spell he uses. By means of it he can enter where he pleases, he can
enslave women to his will, he----"

"And you do not seize it?" Claude cried in a tone of horror.

"He has the Grand Duke's protection," the Syndic answered smoothly, "and
to touch him without clear proof might cause much trouble to the State."

"And f