thank you a thousand
times. And, with my thanks, my farewell. I am also going to Florence."

"Immediately?"

"Immediately."

"You will arrive there before Menko."

"I am in a hurry," replied Varhely, with a smile.

He went to the telegraph office, after leaving the ministry, and sent
a despatch to Angelo Valla, at Paris, in which he asked the Venetian to
join him in Florence. Valla had assured him that he could rely on him
for any service; and Varhely left Vienna, certain that he should find
Manin's old minister at Florence.

"After all, he has not changed so much," he said to himself, thinking of
Josef Ladany. "Without his aid, Menko would certainly have escaped me.
Ladany has taken the times as they are: Zilah and I desire to have them
as they should be. Which is right?"

Then, while the train was carrying him to Venice, he thought: Bah!
it was much better to be a dupe like himself and Zilah, and to die
preserving, like an unsurrendered flag, one's dream intact.

To die?

Yes! After all, Varhely might, at this moment, be close to death; but,
whatever might be the fate which awaited him at the end of his journey,
he found the road very long and the engine very slow.

At Venice he took a train which carried him through Lombardy into
Tuscany; and at Florence he found Angelo Valla.

The Italian already knew, in regard to Michel Menko, all that it was
necessary for him to know. Before going to London, Menko, on his return
from Pau, after the death of his wife, had retired to a small house he
owned in Pistoja; and here he had undoubtedly gone now.

It was a house built on the side of a hill, and surrounded with
olive-trees. Varhely and Valla waited at the hotel until one of Balla's
friends, who lived at Pistoja, should inform him of the arrival of the
Hungarian count. And Menko did, in fact, come there three days after
Varhely reached Florence.

"To-morrow, my dear Valla," said Yanski, "you will accompany me to see
Menko?"

"With pleasure," responded the Italian.

Menko's house was some distance from the station, at the very end of the
little city.

The bell at the gate opening into the garden, had been removed, as if to
show that the master of the house did not wish to be disturbed. Varhely
was obliged to pound heavily upon the wooden barrier. The servant who
appeared in answer to his summons, was an Hungarian, and he wore the
national cap, edged with fur.

"My master does not receive visitors," he a