He went to the telegraph office, after leaving the ministry, and sent a despatch to Angelo Valla, at Paris, in which he asked the Venetian to join him in Florence.  Valla had assured him that he could rely on him for any service; and Varhely left Vienna, certain that he should find Manin’s old minister at Florence.

“After all, he has not changed so much,” he said to himself, thinking of Josef Ladany.  “Without his aid, Menko would certainly have escaped me.  Ladany has taken the times as they are:  Zilah and I desire to have them as they should be.  Which is right?”

Then, while the train was carrying him to Venice, he thought:  Bah! it was much better to be a dupe like himself and Zilah, and to die preserving, like an unsurrendered flag, one’s dream intact.

To die?

Yes!  After all, Varhely might, at this moment, be close to death; but, whatever might be the fate which awaited him at the end of his journey, he found the road very long and the engine very slow.

At Venice he took a train which carried him through Lombardy into Tuscany; and at Florence he found Angelo Valla.

The Italian already knew, in regard to Michel Menko, all that it was necessary for him to know.  Before going to London, Menko, on his return from Pau, after the death of his wife, had retired to a small house he owned in Pistoja; and here he had undoubtedly gone now.

It was a house built on the side of a hill, and surrounded with olive-trees.  Varhely and Valla waited at the hotel until one of Balla’s friends, who lived at Pistoja, should inform him of the arrival of the Hungarian count.  And Menko did, in fact, come there three days after Varhely reached Florence.

“To-morrow, my dear Valla,” said Yanski, “you will accompany me to see Menko?”

“With pleasure,” responded the Italian.

Menko’s house was some distance from the station, at the very end of the little city.

The bell at the gate opening into the garden, had been removed, as if to show that the master of the house did not wish to be disturbed.  Varhely was obliged to pound heavily upon the wooden barrier.  The servant who appeared in answer to his summons, was an Hungarian, and he wore the national cap, edged with fur.

“My master does not receive visitors,” he answered when Yanski asked him, in Italian, if Count Menko were at home.

“Go and say to Menko Mihaly,” said Varhely, this time in Hungarian, “that Count Varhely is here as the representative of Prince Zilah!”

The domestic disappeared, but returned almost immediately and opened the gate.  Varhely and Valla crossed the garden, entered the house, and found themselves face to face with Menko.

Varhely would scarcely have recognized him.

The former graceful, elegant young man had suddenly aged:  his hair was thin and gray upon the temples, and, instead of the carefully trained moustache of the embassy attache, a full beard now covered his emaciated cheeks.