thing?"

"Precisely. The old-leaguer has returned it to Ribalta; the latter told
me so yesterday; no doubt in a spirit of mortification. I say no doubt
for I have not seen the poor, dear man since the duel, which his
impatience toward Ardea and Hafner rendered in evitable. He retired,
I know not for how many days, to the convent of Mount Olivet, near
Sienna, where he has a friend, one Abbe de Negro, of whom he always
speaks as of a saint. I learned, through Rebalta, that he has returned,
but is invisible. I tried to force an entrance. In short, the volume
is again in the shop of the curiosity-seeker in the Rue Borgognona, if
Mademoiselle Hafner still wants it!"

"What good fortune!" exclaimed Fanny, with a sparkle of delight in her
eyes. "I did not know what present to offer my dear Cardinal. Shall we
make the purchase at once?"

"Montluc's prayer-book?" repeated old Ribalta, when the two young ladies
had alighted from the carriage before his small book-shop, more dusty,
more littered than ever with pamphlets, in which he still was, with his
face more wrinkled, more wan and more proud, peering from beneath his
broad-brimmed hat, which he did not raise. "How do you know it is here?
Who has told you? Are there spies everywhere?"

"It was Monsieur Dorsenne, one of Monsieur de Montfanon's friends," said
Fanny, in her gentle voice.

"Sara sara," replied the merchant with his habitual insolence, and,
opening the drawer of the chest in which he kept the most incongruous
treasures, he drew from it the precious volume, which he held toward