amed Nanina was here yesterday?"

"She was," said the doctor.

"Did she speak in private with any one?"

"Yes; with me."

"Then you know everything?"

"Absolutely everything."

"I am glad at least to find that my object in wishing to see the count
can be equally well answered by seeing you. My brother, I regret to
say--" He stopped perplexedly, and drew from his pocket a roll of
papers.

"You may speak of your brother in the plainest terms," said the doctor.
"I know what share he has had in promoting the infamous conspiracy of
the Yellow Mask."

"My petition to you, and through you to the count, is, that your
knowledge of what my brother has done may go no further. If this scandal
becomes public it will ruin me in my profession. And I make little
enough by it already," said Luca, with his old sordid smile breaking out
again faintly on his face.

"Pray do you come from your brother with this petition?" inquired the
doctor.

"No; I come solely on my own account. My brother seems careless what
happens. He has made a full statement of his share in the matter from
the first; has forwarded it to his ecclesiastical superior (who will
send it to the archbishop), and is now awaiting whatever sentence they
choose to pass on him. I have a copy of the document, to prove that he
has at least been candid, and that he does not shrink from consequences
which he might have avoided by flight. The law cannot touch him, but the
Church can--and to the Church he has confessed. All I ask is, that he
may be spared a public exposure. Such an exposure would do no good to
the count, and it would do dreadful injury to me. Look over the papers
yourself, and show them, whenever you think proper, to the master of
this house. I have every confidence in his honor and kindness, and in
yours."

He laid the roll of papers open on the table, and then retired with
great humility to the window. The doctor looked over them with some
curiosity.

The statement or confession began by boldly avowing the writer's
conviction that part of the property which the Count Fabio d'Ascoli
had inherited from his ancestors had been obtained by fraud and
misrepresentation from the Church. The various authorities on which this
assertion was based were then produced in due order; along with some
curious particles of evidence culled from old manuscripts, which it must
have cost much trouble to collect and decipher.

The second section was devoted, at great len