She bit her lip, then smiled again. "What would you?" answered she.

"Through your folly and crime I was become an outcast. I went in danger of my life. You had basely deserted me. My Lord Gambara, more generous, offered me shelter and protection. I was not born for martyrdom and dungeons," she added, and sighed with smiling plaintiveness. "Are you, of all men, the one to blame me?"

"I have not the right, I know," I answered. "Nor do I blame you more than I blame myself. But since I blame myself most bitterly--since I despise and hate myself for what is past, you may judge what my feelings are for you. And judging them, I think it were well you gave me leave to go."

"I came to speak of other than ourselves, Ser Agostino," she answered, all unmoved still by my scorn, or leastways showing nothing of what emotions might be hers. "It is of that simpering daughter of my Lord of Pagliano."

"There is nothing I could less desire to hear you talk upon," said I.

"It is so very like a man to scorn the thing I could tell him after he has already heard it from me."

"The thing you told me was false," said I. "It was begotten of fear to see your own base interests thwarted. It is proven so by the circ.u.mstance that the Duke has sought the hand of Madonna Bianca for Cosimo d'Anguissola."

"For Cosimo?" she cried, and I never saw her so serious and thoughtful.

"For Cosimo? You are sure of this?" The urgency of her tone was such that it held me there and compelled my answer.

"I have it from my lord himself."

She knit her brows, her eyes upon the ground; then slowly she raised them, and looked at me again, the same unusual seriousness and alertness in every line of her face.

"Why, by what dark ways does he burrow to his ends?" she mused.

And then her eyes grew lively, her expression cunning and vengeful. "I see it!" she exclaimed. "O, it is as clear as crystal. This is the Roman manner of using complaisant husbands."

"Madonna!" I rebuked her angrily--angry to think that anyone should conceive that Bianca could be so abused.

"Gesu!" she returned with a shrug. "The thing is plain enough if you will but look at it. Here his excellency dares nothing, lest he should provoke the resentment of that uncompromising Lord of Pagliano. But once she is safely away--as Cosimo's wife..."

"Stop!" I cried, putting out a hand as if I would cover her mouth. Then collecting myself. "Do you suggest that Cosimo could lend himself to so infamous a compact?"

"Lend himself? That pander? You do not know your cousin. If you have any interest in this Madonna Bianca you will get her hence without delay, and see that Pier Luigi has no knowledge of the convent to which she is consigned. He enjoys the privileges of a papal offspring, and there is no sanctuary he will respect. So let the thing be done speedily and in secret."

I looked at her between doubt and horror.

"Why should you mistrust me?" she asked, answering my look. "I have been frank with you. It is not you nor that white-faced ninny I would serve.

You may both go hang for me, though I loved you once, Agostino." And the sudden tenderness of tone and smile were infinitely mocking. "No, no, beloved, if I meddle in this at all, it is because my own interests are in peril."

I shuddered at the cold, matter-of-fact tone in which she alluded to such interests as those which she could have in Pier Luigi.

"Ay, shrink and cringe, sir saint," she sneered. "Having cast me off and taken up holiness, you have the right, of course." And with that she moved past me, and down the terrace-steps without ever turning her head to look at me again. And that was the last I ever saw of her, as you shall find, though little was it to have been supposed so then.

I stood hesitating, half minded to go after her and question her more closely as to what she knew and what she did no more than surmise. But then I reflected that it mattered little. What really mattered was that her good advice should be acted upon without delay.

I went towards the house and in the loggia came face to face with Cosimo.

"Still pursuing the old love," he greeted me, smiling and jerking his head in the direction of Giuliana. "We ever return to it in the end, they say; yet you had best have a care. It is not well to cross my Lord Pier Luigi in such matters; he can be a very jealous tyrant."

I wondered was there some double meaning in the words. I made shift to pa.s.s on, leaving his taunt unanswered, when suddenly he stepped up to me and tapped my shoulder.

"One other thing, sweet cousin. You little deserve a warning at my hands. Yet you shall have it. Make haste to shake the dust of Pagliano from your feet. An evil is hanging over you here."

I looked into his wickedly handsome face, and smiled coldly.

"It is a warning which in my turn I will give to you, you jackal," said I, and watched the expression of his countenance grow set and frozen, the colour recede from it.

"What do you mean?" he growled, touched to suspicion of my knowledge by the term I had employed. "What things has that trull dared to..."

I cut in. "I mean, sir, to warn you. Do not drive me to do more."

We were quite alone. Behind us stretched the long, empty room, before us the empty gardens. He was without weapons as was I. But my manner was so fierce that he recoiled before me, in positive fear of my hands, I think.

I swung on my heel and pursued my way.

I went above to seek Cavalcanti, and found him newly risen. Wrapped in a gown of miniver, he received me with the news that having given the matter thought, he had determined to sacrifice his pride and remove Bianca not later than the morrow, as soon as he could arrange it. And to arrange it he would ride forth at once.

I offered to go with him, and that offer he accepted, whereafter I lounged in his antechamber waiting until he should be dressed, and considering whether to impart to him the further information I had that morning gleaned. In the end I decided not to do so, unable to bring myself to tell him that so much turpitude might possibly be plotting against Bianca. It was a statement that soiled her, so it seemed to me.

Indeed I could scarcely bear to think of it.

Presently he came forth full-dressed, booted, and armed, and we went along the corridor and out upon the gallery. As side by side we were descending the steps, we caught sight of a singular group in the courtyard.

Six mounted men in black were drawn up there, and a little in the foreground a seventh, in a corselet of blackened steel and with a steel cap upon his head, stood by his horse in conversation with Farnese. In attendance upon the Duke were Cosimo and some three of his gentlemen.

We halted upon the steps, and I felt Cavalcanti's hand suddenly tighten upon my arm.

"What is it?" I asked innocently, entirely unalarmed. "These are familiars of the Holy Office," he answered me, his tone very grave. In that moment the Duke, turning, espied us. He came towards the staircase to meet us, and his face, too, was very solemn.

We went down, I filled by a strange uneasiness, which I am sure was entirely shared by Cavalcanti.

"Evil tidings, my Lord of Pagliano," said Farnese. "The Holy Office has sent to arrest the person of Agostino d'Anguissola, for whom it has been seeking for over a year."

"For me?" I cried, stepping forward ahead of Cavalcanti. "What has the Holy Office to do with me?"

The leading familiar advanced. "If you are Agostino d'Anguissola, there is a charge of sacrilege against you, for which you are required to answer before the courts of the Holy Office in Rome."

"Sacrilege?" I echoed, entirely bewildered--for my first thought had been that here might be something concerning the death of Fifanti, and that the dread tribunal of the Inquisition dealing with the matter secretly, there would be no disclosures to be feared by those who had evoked its power.

The thought was, after all, a foolish one; for the death of Fifanti was a matter that concerned the Ruota and the open courts, and those, as I well knew, did not dare to move against me, on Messer Gambara's account.

"Of what sacrilege can I be guilty?" I asked.

"The tribunal will inform you," replied the familiar--a tall, sallow, elderly man.

"The tribunal will need, then, to await some other opportunity," said Cavalcanti suddenly. "Messer d'Anguissola is my guest; and my guests are not so rudely plucked forth from Pagliano."

The Duke drew away, and leaned upon the arm of Cosimo, watching. Behind me in the gallery I heard a rustle of feminine gowns; but I did not turn to look. My eyes were upon the stern sable figure of the familiar.

"You will not be so ill-advised, my lord," he was saying, "as to compel us to use force."

"You will not, I trust, be so ill-advised as to attempt it," laughed Cavalcanti, tossing his great head. "I have five score men-at-arms within these walls, Messer Black-clothes."