aw intervened neither bar nor bolt could save
them.

He fell to thinking of this, and stood, arrested in the middle of the
darkened room that, as the hours went by, was beginning to take on a
familiar look. The day was passing, all without remained quiet, nothing
had happened. Was it possible that nothing would happen? Was it possible
that the girl through long brooding exaggerated the peril? And that the
worst to be feared was such an outbreak as had occurred that morning?
Such an outbreak as might not take place again, since mobs were fickle
things.

He dwelt a while on this more hopeful view of things. Then he recalled
Basterga's threats, the Syndic's face, the departure of Louis and Grio;
and his heart sank as lead sinks. The rumour so quickly spread--by what
hints, what innuendoes, what cunning inquiries, what references to the
old, invisible, bedridden woman, he could but guess--that rumour bore
witness to a malice and a thirst for revenge which were not likely to
stop at words. And Louis' flight? And Grio's? And Basterga's?--for he
did not return. To believe that all these, taken together, these and the
outrage of the morning, portended anything but danger, anything but the
worst, demanded a hopefulness that even his youth and his love could not
compass.

Yet when she descended he met her with brave looks.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE _REMEDIUM_.

Blondel's thin lips were warrant--to such of the world as had eyes to
see--that in the ordinary things of life he would have been one of the
last to put faith in a man of Basterga's stamp: and one of the first,
had the case been other than his own, to laugh at the credulity he was
displaying. He would have seen--no one more clearly--that, in making the
bargain he had made, he was in the position of a drowning man who
clutches at a straw; not because he believes that the straw will support
him, but because he has no other hope, and is loth to sink.

He would have seen, too, another thing, which indeed he did see dimly.
This was that, talk as he might, make terms as he might, repeat as
firmly as he pleased, "The _remedium_ first and then Geneva," he would
be forced when the time came to take the word for the deed. If he dared
not trust Basterga, neither dared the scholar trust him. Once safe, once
snatched from the dark fate that scared him, he would laugh at the
notion of betraying the city. He would snap his fingers in the Paduan's
face; and Basterga knew it. The