Eat not the poisoned figs, nor give them either to your servants or your fowls." Then he folded the paper, fastened it with a postage stamp, and wrote on it the address: "To his most Reverend and most Illustrious Eminence, Cardinal Boccanera." And when he had placed everything in his pocket again, he drew a long breath and once more called back his laugh.
A kind of invincible discomfort, a far-away terror had momentarily frozen him.

Without being guided by any clear train of reasoning, he had felt the need of protecting himself against any cowardly temptation, any possible abomination.

He could not have told what course of ideas had induced him to write those four lines without a moment's delay, on the very spot where he stood, under penalty of contributing to a great catastrophe.

But one thought was firmly fixed in his brain, that on leaving the ball he would go to the Via Giulia and throw that note into the letter-box at the Palazzo Boccanera.

And that decided, he was once more easy in mind.
"Why, what is the matter with you, my dear Abbe ?" he inquired on again joining in the conversation of the two friends.