Little Antonio would have been an affectionate companion in his loving foster-mother’s illness, but the child was at Pratolino with Maria and Eleanora, unhappy Giovanna’s daughters.  The former, just fifteen years old, had been Bianca’s special care.  She was a precocious child, and her stepmother imparted to her some of her own delightful inspirations—­the two were inseparable.  What a comfort she would have been in gentle ministrations to the suffering Grand Duchess!

Perhaps, had pain-racked, dying Bianca imagined the splendid destiny of the attractive young Princess Maria, she might have gathered no little solace.  Could she but have seen her own example and her precepts reincarnated in a Queen of France—­for Maria became the consort of Henry II., and ruled him, his court and realm—­she would have turned her face to the wall with greater equanimity.

Just before his death the Grand Duke sent for Ferdinando, told him he had been poisoned by no one but himself, and charged him with the double murder, for he had constant news, of course, of Bianca’s illness.  He asked him in that solemn hour to honour both of them in burial, to protect the little boy Antonio and his two young daughters, Maria and Eleanora, and to treat kindly all who had been faithful and true to Bianca and himself.  Then he gave him the password for the Tuscan fortresses, and asked for his confessor, and so he passed away.  As soon as Francesco was dead, Ferdinando demanded to be admitted to the bedside of Bianca.  Concealing from her the fatal news, he intimated that Francesco had consigned to him the conduct of affairs, and in the most heartless, inhuman fashion possible, bade her prepare for death!

“See,” he added, “I have brought your friend, Abbioso; you may as well make your confession to him as Francesco has done to Frate Confetti.”

Bianca, though only partially conscious, knew exactly what the Cardinal meant, and railed at him for his cruelty.  In delirium she made passionate appeals to Francesco, and wildly denounced her treacherous brother-in-law.  Her cries resounded through the villa, but they stirred no feeling of regret or compunction in Ferdinando’s breast.  He gloated, fiend-like, over his victim’s sufferings.  It was not by chance he procured the potent poison he had used.  The empiric-medico at Salerno had been well paid to furnish a potion that should, by its slow but deadly action, prolong the tortures of the sufferers!  A less vindictive murderer would have secured his victim’s quick release, but, during ten terrible days of sickness, delirium and agony, he witnessed the inevitable progress of his vengeance!  If Cosimo, his father, had called his young son Garzia “Cain,” what would not he have called the man, the bloodthirsty Ferdinando?

Bianca’s illness followed precisely the course of the Grand Duke’s.  The tearful faces of her attendants, and the noise of preparations for his burial, conveyed to her in calmer moments the terrible truth, and she had no longer any wish to live—­parted from Francesco.  Bianca was already dead.  She called the bishop and made a full confession of her whole life’s story, hiding nothing, palliating nothing.  Out of a full heart she spoke—­that heart which had been the source of all her love and her happiness, her misery and her sin.