“Confess what you please, my dear,” said I, “I shall shrive you.”  Her eyes were dewy, but she lowered them too soon.

“It was a sin,” she said, “but I do not intend to eat any sausage, so I shall be forgiven.  But you see that the spies are all abroad.  Now, I have just thought of something, Don Francis.  We cannot remain in this cloister—­at least, I cannot.  If a canon awoke before his time—­and it needs but a fly to settle on a nose to cause it—­and if he poke his head out of his door, the first thing he will do will be to look at me—­”

“Naturally, Virginia,” I said.  “It is what I am doing.”

“I am well aware of it,” said Virginia, and showed that she spoke the truth; “but the second thing he will do will be to look at you.  I don’t think we can afford ourselves this honour, so let us go.  There is a way from here into the library, thence into the church, and from there to the Sagrestia Nuova, if we could only find it, whither nobody goes but a grand duke—­and he only when he is dead.  Let us go by that—­will you not come?  It is true that I am rather frightened by now.”

I got up at once.  “Come, then, child, let us hunt out our way.”  We went upstairs.

The long library was quite empty.  We went to the further end on tiptoe.  There were three doors at the bottom in three bays, surmounted by busts.  We chose for the right hand and turned the handle.  It gave into a narrow passage, lined with bookcases and dimly lighted.  “I think this will be the way,” Virginia said, and took the key out of the door and locked it on the inside.  We followed the passage to a flight of stone steps, descended these in their curving course round a pillar, and came upon a little arched doorway.  Virginia opened it.  It led directly into the church of San Lorenzo.  We saw the hanging lamps before the altars, and a boy in a short surplice asleep in a confessional.

“Wait here, wait here,” says Virginia.  “I will make him lead us into the Sagrestia.”

I saw her go, lightly as a hare in the grass, towards the boy, and wondered.  She stooped over him where he was huddled anyhow, as children are when they are asleep, and whispered in his ear.  “Carino, carino, do you sleep?  I am talking to you, carino, do you hear me?  Say yes.”

“Si, si,” the boy murmured, and sighed and struggled.

“I am speaking to you, carino.  I am tired; I want to sleep also.  Tell me how to reach the Sagrestia, where the monsters lie sleeping and waking; whisper it, whisper it, and I will kiss you for it.”  I heard her soothing “Hush!  Hush!” as he stirred.  She went on whispering in his ear.  It seemed to me that she was insinuating herself into his dreams.  He stirred more than once, turned his head about; every moment I expected to see him open his eyes; but no.  As Virginia continued to whisper, he began to murmur in his sleep, she directing him.  He answered, laughed softly, turned about,