e nights
are dark and damp. But I can offer you something more attractive than
liquor and tobacco. A great violinist lives with me,--a queer,
nocturnal bird,--and if you will come he will be enchanted to play for
you. I assure you he is a very-good musician, the like of which you
will hardly hear nowadays. He does not play in public any longer, from
some odd fancy of his."

Nino hesitated. Of all instruments he loved the violin best, and in
Rome he had had but little opportunity of hearing it well played.
Concerts were the rarest of luxuries to him, and violinists in Rome
are rarer still.

"What is his name, signore?" he asked, unbending a little.

"You must guess that when you hear him," said the old gentleman,
with a short laugh. "But I give you my word of honour he is a
great musician. Will you come, or must I offer you still further
attractions?"

"What might they be?" asked Nino.

"Nay; will you come for what I offer you? If the music is not good,
you may go away again." Still Nino hesitated. Sorrowful and fearful of
the future as he was, his love gnawing cruelly at his heart, he would
have given the whole world for a strain of rare music if only he were
not forced to make it himself. Then it struck him that this might be
some pitfall. I would not have gone.

"Sir," he said at last, "if you meditate any foul play, I would advise
you to retract your invitation. I will come, and I am well armed." He
had my long knife about him somewhere. It is one of my precautions.
But the stranger laughed long and loud at the suggestion, so that his
voice woke queer echoes in the silent street. Nino did not understand
why he should laugh so much, but he found his knife under his cloak,
and made sure it was loose in its leathern sheath. Presently the
stranger stopped before the large door of an old palazzo,--every house
is a palazzo that has an entrance for carriages, and let himself in
with a key. There was a lantern on the stone pavement inside, and
seeing a light, Nino followed him boldly. The old gentleman took the
lantern and led the way up the stairs, apologising for the distance
and the darkness. At last they stopped, and, entering another door,
found themselves in the stranger's apartment.

"A cardinal lives downstairs," said he, as he turned up the light of a
couple of large lamps that burned dimly in the room they had reached.
"The secretary of a very holy order has his office on the other side
of my landing, and