Alfonso d’Este was the heir of his father, Ercole II.—­of his titles and wealth, but not of his good looks and polished manners:  besides, his reputation for chastity and sobriety was not of the best.  Directly Maria was told of the arrangement she expressed her disgust and her determination not to submit to parental dictation.  Her reception of the Prince was cold in the extreme, she declined to see him apart from her sisters and attendants, and he returned to Ferrara in no amiable frame of mind.

Meanwhile love, true love, had peeped through the jalousies of Princess Maria’s window, and his arrows had fled their dangerous course unseen by any but herself, and him whose heart was hers.  No one suspected that a life so guarded could, by any means, be filched from its restraints; but so it was, and the first gossip sprang out of the mouth of a venerable Spanish retainer of the Duchess, the faithful custode, Mandriano, who guarded his mistress’s door almost night and day.

Traversing one day an unfrequented part of the gardens of the Palace on the Hill, the old fellow thought he heard voices, and, approaching a grove of laurels, he descried the young Princess in the arms of Malatesta de’ Malatesti!

The Duchess was furious when Mandriano told her, and immediately conveyed the portentous news to her husband.  Cosimo reflected long and acted warily, for he made no move for many days.  Stealthily he tracked the unsuspecting lovers to their trysting-place.  Mandriano’s story was quite correct.

He summoned the two young people to his private closet, he acquainted them with the fact that the liaison could not continue, and ordered Malatesta to prepare for immediate imprisonment—­with the loss of all his honours and the confidence of his Sovereign.  The boy pleaded in vain, and testified to the innocence of the love-making without effect, except to raise the Duke’s anger to a dangerous pitch.  Maria threw herself at her father’s feet and appealed for mercy for her lover, asking that the parental vengeance should fall on her and not on Malatesta.

“That you shall have, base child of mine,” Cosimo cried in a fierce tone; “see, you shall have the justice of a Roman father!” Then, plucking out his poignard from its hidden sheath, he stabbed his child to the heart!  Drawing forth the gory weapon, he flung it at the head of the despairing youth, and, throwing his cloak around his shoulders, rushed out of the chamber slamming-to the door!

Malatesta must have fallen in a deadly swoon across the lovely form of his innamorata, incapable of speech and action, for, there they were found, both apparently dead, by brethren of the Misericordia, who had been summoned by the Duke.  Malatesta was thrown into prison, and there he languished for seven long years, without anyone knowing of his existence.  His parents had asked Cosimo repeatedly about the boy, but no answer was ever given—­the Duke having forbidden the subject to be named.