He was quite exhausted; for a few minutes he slept.  On waking and realising the situation, he attached his third rope to a cannon, and hurried down to the ground.  Two men seized him just as he fainted at the foot.

A few hours afterwards a carriage crossed the frontier with Ludovico on the box, and within it the Duchess watching over the sleeping Fabrice.  The journey did not end until they had reached Locarno on Lake Maggiore.

V.—­Clelia’s Vow

To Locarno soon afterwards came die news that Ranuce Ernest IV. was dead.  Fabrice could now safely return, for the young Ranuce Ernest V. was believed to be entirely under the influence of Count Mosca, and was an honest youth without the tyrannical instincts of his father.  Nevertheless the Duchess returned first, to make certain of Fabrice’s security.  She employed her whole influence to hasten forward the wedding of Clelia with the Marquis Crescenzi; she was jealous of the ascendancy the girl had gained over her beloved nephew.

Fabrice, on reaching Parma, was well received by the young Prince.  Witnesses, he was told, had been found who could prove that he had killed Giletti in self-defence.  He would spend a few days in a purely nominal confinement in the city gaol, and then would be tried by impartial judges and released.

Imagine the consternation of the Duchess when she learnt that Fabrice, having to go to prison, had deliberately given himself up at the citadel!

She saw the danger clearly.  Fabrice was in the hands of Count Mosca’s political opponents, among whom General Conti was still a leading spirit.  They would not suffer him to escape this time.  Fabrice would be poisoned.

Clelia, too, knew that this would be his fate.  When she saw him once again at the old window, happily signalling to her, she was smitten with panic terror.  Her alarm was realised when she learnt of a plot between Rassi and her father to poison the prisoner.

On the second day of his confinement Fabrice was about to eat his dinner when Clelia, in desperate agitation, forced her way into his cell.

“Have you tasted it?” she cried, grasping his arm.

Fabrice guessed the state of affairs with delight.  He seized her in his arms and kissed her.

“Help me to die,” he said.

“Oh, my beloved,” she answered, “let me die with you.”

“Let me not spoil our happiness with a lie,” said he as he embraced her.  “I have not yet tasted.”

For an instant Clelia looked at him in anger; then she fell again into his arms.

At that instant there came a sound of men hurrying.  There entered the Prince’s aide-de-camp, with order to remove Fabrice from the citadel and to seize the poisoned food.  The Duchess had heard of the plot, and had persuaded the Prince to take instant action.

Clelia, when her father was in danger of death on account of the plot, vowed before the Virgin Mary never again to look upon the face of Fabrice.  Her father escaped with a sentence of banishment; and Clelia, to the profound satisfaction of the Duchess, was wedded to the Marquis Crescenzi.  The Duchess was now a widow, Count Mosca a widower.  Their long friendship, after Fabrice’s triumphant acquittal, was cemented by marriage.