But how should it profit me?
Rather must it prove my destruction at the hands of his followers, and to be destroyed just then, with Paola depending upon me, and life full of promise once I regained my liberty, was something I had no mind to risk.
My eyes wandered to the letter lying on the table.

If this were of the nature we suspected, it should prove a safer tool for his destruction.
To read it as it lay was an easy matter, and it came to me then that ere I decided upon my course it might be well that I should do so.

If by chance it were innocent of treason, why, then, I might resort to the risk of that other and more desperate weapon--his own dagger.
At the foot of the short flight of steps that led from the hall to the courtyard I could hear the slow pacing of the sentry placed there by Ramiro.

But unless he were summoned, it was extremely unlikely that the fellow would leave his post, so that, I concluded, I had little to fear from that quarter.

I drew back and taking up a position behind Ramiro's chair--a position more favourable to escape in the untoward event of his awaking--I craned forward to read the letter over his shoulder.