"My Lord Cardinal and his Duke may take themselves together to h.e.l.l ere I obey the summons that the one has sent me at the desire of the other.

Here I stay to guard what is my own."

"You are a fool," said Giuliana at length, "and a knave, too, for you insult me without cause."

"Without cause? O, without cause, eh? By the Host! Yet you would not have me stay?"

"I would not have you gaoled, which is what will happen if you disobey the Duke's magnificence," said she.

"Gaoled?" quoth he, of a sudden trembling in the increasing intensity of his pa.s.sion. "Caged, perhaps--to die of hunger and thirst and exposure, like that poor wretch Domenico who perished yesterday, at last, because he dared to speak the truth. Gesu!" he groaned. "O, miserable me!" And he sank into a chair.

But the next instant he was up again, and his long arms were waving fiercely. "By the Eyes of G.o.d! They shall have cause to cage me. If I am to be horned like a bull, I'll use those same horns. I'll gore their vitals. O madam, since of your wantonness you inclined to harlotry, you should have wedded another than Astorre Fifanti."

It was too much. I leapt to my feet.

"Messer Fifanti," I blazed at him. "I'll not remain to hear such words addressed to this sweet lady."

"Ah, yes," he snarled, wheeling suddenly upon me as if he would strike me. "I had forgot the champion, the preux-chevalier, the saint in embryo! You will not remain to hear the truth, sir, eh?" And he strode, mouthing, to the door, and flung it wide so that it crashed against the wall. "This is your remedy. Get you hence! Go! What pa.s.ses here concerns you not. Go!" he roared like a mad beast, his rage a thing terrific.

I looked at him and from him to Giuliana, and my eyes most clearly invited her to tell me how she would have me act.

"Indeed, you had best go, Agostino," she answered sadly. "I shall bear his insults easier if there be no witness. Yes, go."

"Since it is your wish, Madonna," I bowed to her, and very erect, very defiant of mien, I went slowly past the livid Fifanti, and so out. I heard the door slammed after me, and in the little hall I came upon Busio, who was wringing his hand and looking very white. He ran to me.

"He will murder her, Messer Agostino," moaned the old man. "He can be a devil in his anger."

"He is a devil always, in anger and out of it," said I. "He needs an exorcist. It is a task that I should relish. I'd beat the devils out of him, Busio, and she would let me. Meanwhile, stay we here, and if she needs our help, it shall be hers."

I dropped on to the carved settle that stood there, old Busio standing at my elbow, more tranquil now that there was help at hand for Madonna in case of need. And through the door came the sound of his storming, and presently the crash of more broken gla.s.sware, as once more he thumped the table. For well-high half an hour his fury lasted, and it was seldom that her voice was interposed. Once we heard her laugh, cold and cutting as a sword's edge, and I shivered at the sound, for it was not good to hear.

At last the door was opened and he came forth. His face was inflamed, his eyes wild and blood-injected. He paused for a moment on the threshold, but I do not think that he noticed us at first. He looked back at her over his shoulder, still sitting at table, the outline of her white-gowned body sharply defined against the deep blue tapestry of the wall behind her.

"You are warned," said he. "Do you heed the warning!" And he came forward.

Perceiving me at last where I sat, he bared his broken teeth in a snarling smile. But it was to Busio that he spoke. "Have my mule saddled for me in an hour," he said, and pa.s.sed on and up the stairs to make his preparations. It seemed, therefore, that she had conquered his suspicions.

I went in to offer her comfort, for she was weeping and all shaken by that cruel encounter. But she waved me away.

"Not now, Agostino. Not now," she implored me. "Leave me to myself, my friend."

I had not been her friend had I not obeyed her without question.

CHAPTER V. PABULUM ACHERONTIS

It was late that afternoon when Astorre Fifanti set out. He addressed a few brief words to me, informing me that he should return within four days, betide what might, setting me tasks upon which I was meanwhile to work, and bidding me keep the house and be circ.u.mspect during his absence.

From the window of my room I saw the doctor get astride his mule. He was girt with a big sword, but he still wore his long, absurd and shabby gown and his loose, ill-fitting shoes, so that it was very likely that the stirrup-leathers would engage his thoughts ere he had ridden far.

I saw him dig his heels into the beast's sides and go ambling down the little avenue and out at the gate. In the road he drew rein, and stood in talk some moments with a lad who idled there, a lad whom he was wont to employ upon odd tasks about the garden and elsewhere.

This, Madonna also saw, for she was watching his departure from the window of a room below. That she attached more importance to that little circ.u.mstance than did I, I was to learn much later.

At last he pushed on, and I watched him as he dwindled down the long grey road that wound along the river-side until in the end he was lost to view--for all time, I hoped; and well had it been for me had my idle hope been realized.

I supped alone that night with no other company than Busio's, who ministered to my needs.

Madonna sent word that she would keep her chamber. When I had supped and after night had fallen I went upstairs to the library, and, shutting myself in, I attempted to read, lighted by the three beaks of the tall bra.s.s lamp that stood upon the table. Being plagued by moths, I drew the curtains close across the open window, and settled down to wrestle with the opening lines of the [t.i.tle in Greek] of Aeschylus.

But my thoughts wandered from the doings of the son of Iapetus, until at last I flung down the book and sat back in my chair all lost in thought, in doubt, and in conjecture. I became seriously introspective. I made an examination not only of conscience, but of heart and mind, and I found that I had gone woefully astray from the path that had been prepared for me. Very late I sat there and sought to determine upon what I should do.

Suddenly, like a manna to my starving soul, came the memory of the last talk I had with Fra Gervasio and the solemn warning he had given me.

That memory inspired me rightly. To-morrow--despite Messer Fifanti's orders--I would take horse and ride to Mondolfo, there to confess myself to Fra Gervasio and to be guided by his counsel. My mother's vows concerning me I saw in their true light. They were not binding upon me; indeed, I should be doing a hideous wrong were I to follow them against my inclinations. I must not d.a.m.n my soul for anything that my mother had vowed or ever I was born, however much she might account that it would be no more than filial piety so to do.

I was easier in mind after my resolve was taken, and I allowed that mind of mine to stray thereafter as it listed. It took to thoughts of Giuliana--Giuliana for whom I ached in every nerve, although I still sought to conceal from myself the true cause of my suffering. Better a thousand times had I envisaged that sinful fact and wrestled with it boldly. Thus should I have had a chance of conquering myself and winning clear of all the horror that lay before me.

That I was weak and irresolute at such a time, when I most needed strength, I still think to-day--when I can take a calm survey of all--was the fault of the outrageous rearing that was mine. At Mondolfo they had so nurtured me and so sheltered me from the stinging blasts of the world that I was grown into a very ripe and succulent fruit for the Devil's mouth. The things to whose temptation usage would have rendered me in some degree immune were irresistible to one who had been tutored as had I.

Let youth know wickedness, lest when wickedness seeks a man out in his riper years he shall be fooled and conquered by the beauteous garb in which the Devil has the cunning to array it.

And yet to pretend that I was entirely innocent of where I stood and in what perils were to play the hypocrite. Largely I knew; just as I knew that lacking strength to resist, I must seek safety in flight. And to-morrow I would go. That point was settled, and the page, meanwhile, turned down. And for to-night I delivered myself up to the savouring of this hunger that was upon me.

And then, towards the third hour of night, as I still sat there, the door was very gently opened, and I beheld Giuliana standing before me.

She detached from the black background of the pa.s.sage, and the light of my three-beaked lamp set her ruddy hair aglow so that it seemed there was a luminous nimbus all about her head. For a moment this gave colour to my fancy that I beheld a vision evoked by the too great intentness of my thoughts. The pale face seemed so transparent, the white robe was almost diaphanous, and the great dark eyes looked so sad and wistful.

Only in the vivid scarlet of her lips was there life and blood.

I stared at her. "Giuliana!" I murmured.

"Why do you sit so late?" she asked me, and closed the door as she spoke.

"I have been thinking, Giuliana," I answered wearily, and I pa.s.sed a hand over my brow to find it moist and clammy. "To-morrow I go hence."

She started round and her eyes grew distended, her hand clutched her breast. "You go hence?" she cried, a note as of fear in her deep voice.

"Hence? Whither?"

"Back to Mondolfo, to tell my mother that her dream is at an end."

She came slowly towards me. "And... and then?" she asked.

"And then? I do not know. What G.o.d wills. But the scapulary is not for me. I am unworthy. I have no call. This I now know. And sooner than be such a priest as Messer Gambara--of whom there are too many in the Church to-day--I will find some other way of serving G.o.d."

"Since... since when have you thought thus?"

"Since this morning, when I kissed you," I answered fiercely.

She sank into a chair beyond the table and stretched a hand across it to me, inviting the clasp of mine. "But if this is so, why leave us?"