d 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--I had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest foreigner
in the church." Tony bowed again, more profoundly. "The English
Ambassador," Polixena added simply, "is a very handsome man."

"I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!"

She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a look
of anguish. "Fool that I am! How can I jest