to save Malipieri's, and would have been glad to give it.

He set the lamp down on the table, and waited for orders, his blue
eyes quietly fixed on his master.

"I never saw that gentleman before," said Malipieri, setting some
papers in order, under the bright light, but still standing. "Did you
look at his face?"

"Yes, sir," answered Masin, and waited.

"What sort of man should you take him to be?"

"A spy, sir," replied Masin promptly.

"I think you are right," Malipieri answered. "We will begin work to-
morrow morning."

"Yes, sir."

Malipieri ate his supper without noticing what Masin brought him, and
then installed himself with his shaded lamp at his work-table. He took
from the drawer a number of sketches of plans and studied them
attentively, by a rather odd process.

He had drawn only one plan on heavy paper, in strong black lines. An
architect would have seen at once that it represented a part of the
foundations of a very large building; and two or three persons then
living in Rome might have recognized the plan of the cellars under the
north-west corner of the Palazzo Conti--certainly not more than two or