ato_ to the duke. "The dog
proves that."

"Sancho proves it," said the duke gravely.

As he spoke he paused as if suddenly arrested. His eyes were fixed on a
small Florentine mirror which hung over Fay's writing-table in the angle
of the wall. The duke's face changed, as a man's face might change, who,
conscious of no enemy, feels himself stabbed from behind in the dark.
Then he came forward, and said with a firm voice:

"We will now go once more into the gardens. Lord John, you will
accompany us."

Lord John got heavily to his feet.

"Take Sancho with you," said Fay, holding the dog with difficulty, who
was obviously excited and suspicious, its mobile nostrils working, its
eyes glued to the screen.

The duke opened the glass door, and Sancho, his attention turned, rushed
out into the night, barking furiously.

"You need have no further fear," said the duke to Fay, looking into her
eyes. "The assassin has certainly escaped."

"No doubt," said Fay.

"Unless he is hiding behind the screen all the time," said Lord John,
with his customary facetiousness. "It is about the only place in the
room he could hide in, except of course the wastepaper basket."

The _delegato_, who was not apparently a man who quickly seized the
humorous side of a remark, at once stepped back from the window, and
glanced at the wastepaper basket.

"I may as well look behind the screen," he said, and went towards it.

But before he could reach it the screen moved, and Michael came out from
behind it.

The four people in the room gazed at him spell-bound, speechless; Lord
John reeled against the wall. The duke alone retained his
self-possession.

Michael advanced into the middle of the room, and for a moment his eyes
met Fay's. Who shall say what he read in their terror-stricken depths?

Then he turned to the duke and said:

"I ask pardon of you, duke, and of the duchess, my cousin, for the
inconvenience I have caused you. I confess to the murder of the Marchese
di Maltagliala, and sought refuge in the garden. When the garden was
surrounded I sought refuge here. I did not tell the duchess what I had
done, but I implored her to let me take shelter here, and to promise not
to give me up. She ought at once to have given me up. She yielded to the
dictates of humanity and suffered me to hide in this room. Duchess, I
thank you for your noble, your self-sacrificing but unavailing desire to
shield a guilty man."

Michael went up to her,