“And yet you love our handsome prince,” said Giulietta; “and there is the great sin you are breaking your little heart about.  Well, now, it’s all of that dry, sour old Father Francesco.  I never could abide him,—­he made such dismal pother about sin; old Father Girolamo was worth a dozen of him.  If you would just see our good Father Stefano, now, he would set your mind at ease about your vows in a twinkling; and you must needs get them loosed, for our captain is born to command, and when princes stoop to us peasant-girls it isn’t for us to say nay.  It’s being good as Saint Michael himself for him to think of you only in the holy way of marriage.  I’ll warrant me, there’s many a lord cardinal at Rome that isn’t so good; and as to princes, he is one of a thousand, a most holy and religious knight, or he would do as others do when they have the power.”

Agnes, confused and agitated, turned away, and, as if seeking refuge, laid her down in the bed, looking timidly up at the unwonted splendor,—­and then, hiding her face in the pillow, began repeating a prayer.

Giulietta sat by her a moment, till she felt, from the relaxing of the little hand, that the reaction of fatigue and intense excitement was beginning to take place.  Nature would assert her rights, and the heavy curtain of sleep fell on the weary little head.  Quietly extinguishing the lights, Giulietta left the room, locking the door.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE CRISIS.

Agnes was so entirely exhausted with bodily fatigue and mental agitation that she slept soundly till awakened by the beams of the morning sun.  Her first glance up at the gold-embroidered curtains of her bed occasioned a bewildered surprise;—­she raised herself and looked around, slowly recovering her consciousness and the memory of the strange event which had placed her where she was.  She rose hastily and went to the window to look out.  This window was in a kind of circular tower projecting from the side of the building, such as one often sees in old Norman architecture;—­it overhung not only a wall of dizzy height, but a precipice with a sheer descent of some thousand feet; and far below, spread out like a map in the distance, lay a prospect of enchanting richness.  The eye might wander over orchards of silvery olives, plantations with their rows of mulberry-trees supporting the vines, now in the first tender spring green, scarlet fields of clover, and patches where the young corn was just showing its waving blades above the brown soil.  Here and there rose tufts of stone-pines with their dark umbrella-tops towering above all other foliage, while far off in the blue distance a silvery belt of glittering spangles showed where the sea closed in the horizon-line.  So high was the perch, so distant and dreamy the prospect, that Agues felt a sensation of giddiness, as if she were suspended over it in the air,—­and turned away from the window, to look again at what seemed to her the surprising and unheard-of splendors of the apartment.  There lay her simple peasant garb, on the rich velvet couch,—­a strange sight in the midst of so much luxury.  Having dressed herself, she sat down, and, covering her face with her hands, tried to reflect calmly on the position in which she was placed.