“Know you where to seek?” said Adrian, impatiently; “the Convent holds far other guests.”

“Ha! so said my dream!”

“Talk not now of dreams,” said the lover; “but if you have no other guide, let us part at once in quest of her.  I will take yonder street, you take the opposite, and at sunset let us meet in the same spot.”

“Rash man!” said the Tribune, with great solemnity; “scoff not at the visions which Heaven makes a parable to its Chosen.  Thou seekest counsel of thy human wisdom; I, less presumptuous, follow the hand of the mysterious Providence, moving even now before my gaze as a pillar of light through the wilderness of dread.  Ay, meet we here at sunset, and prove whose guide is the most unerring.  If my dream tell me true, I shall see my sister living, ere the sun reach yonder hill, and by a church dedicated to St. Mark.”

The grave earnestness with which Rienzi spoke impressed Adrian with a hope which his reason would not acknowledge.  He saw him depart with that proud and stately step to which his sweeping garments gave a yet more imposing dignity, and then passed up the street to the right hand.  He had not got half way when he felt himself pulled by the mantle.  He turned, and saw the shapeless mask of a Becchino.

“I feared you were sped, and that another had cheated me of my office,” said the gravedigger, “seeing that you returned not to the old Prince’s palace.  You don’t know me from the rest of us I see, but I am the one you told to seek—­”

“Irene!”

“Yes, Irene di Gabrini; you promised ample reward.”

“You shall have it.”

“Follow me.”

The Becchino strode on, and soon arrived at a mansion.  He knocked twice at the porter’s entrance, an old woman cautiously opened the door.  “Fear not, good aunt,” said the gravedigger; “this is the young Lord I spoke to thee of.  Thou sayest thou hadst two ladies in the palace, who alone survived of all the lodgers, and their names were Bianca de Medici, and—­what was the other?”

“Irene di Gabrini, a Roman lady.  But I told thee this was the fourth day they left the house, terrified by the deaths within it.”

“Thou didst so:  and was there anything remarkable in the dress of the Signora di Gabrini?”

“Yes, I have told thee:  a blue mantle, such as I have rarely seen, wrought with silver.”

“Was the broidery that of stars, silver stars,” exclaimed Adrian, “with a sun in the centre?”

“It was.”

“Alas! alas! the arms of the Tribune’s family!  I remember how I praised the mantle the first day she wore it—­the day on which we were betrothed!” And the lover at once conjectured the secret sentiment which had induced Irene to retain thus carefully a robe so endeared by association.

“You know no more of your lodgers?”

“Nothing.”

“And is this all you have learned, knave?” cried Adrian.