Violante found herself almost alone in a simple village among mountains, half-way between Rome and Orvieto, surrounded indeed by lovely forest scenery, but deprived of all the luxuries and entertainments to which she was accustomed.  Marcello and Diana were at her side, the one eager to pursue his hitherto hopeless suit, and the other to further it for her own profit.  One day Marcello committed the apparent imprudence of avowing his passion.  The Duchess rejected him with scorn, but disclosed the fact to Diana, who calculated that if she could contrive to compromise her mistress, she might herself be able to secure the end she had in view of marrying Domiziano.  In the solitude of those long days of exile the waiting-woman returned again and again to the subject of Marcello’s devotion, his beauty, his noble blood and his manifold good qualities.  She arranged meetings in the woods between the Duchess and her lover, and played her cards so well that during the course of the fine summer weeks Violante yielded to Marcello.  Diana now judged it wise to press her own suit forward with Domiziano.  But this cold-blooded fellow knew that he was no fit match for a relative of the Marchioness of Montebello.  He felt, besides, but little sentiment for his fiery innamorata.  Dreading the poignard of the Caraffas, if he should presume to marry her, he took the prudent course of slipping away in disguise from the port of Nettuno.  Diana maddened by disappointment, flew to the conclusion that the Duchess had planned her lover’s removal, and resolved to take a cruel revenge.  The Duke of Palliano was residing at Soriano, only a few miles from Gallese.  To bring him secret information of his wife’s intrigue was a matter of no difficulty.  At first he refused to believe her report.  Had not Violante resisted the seductions of all Rome, and repelled the advances even of the Duke of Guise?  At last she contrived to introduce him into the bedroom of the Duchess at a moment when Marcello was also there.  The circumstances were not precisely indicative of guilt.  The sun had only just gone down behind the hills; a maid was in attendance; and the Duchess lay in bed, penciling some memoranda.  Yet they were sufficient to arouse the Duke’s anger.  He disarmed Marcello and removed him to the prisons of Soriano, leaving Violante under strict guard at Gallese.

The Duke of Palliano had no intention of proclaiming his jealousy or of suggesting his dishonor, until he had extracted complete proof.  He therefore pretended to have arrested Marcello on the suspicion of an attempt to poison him.  Some large toads, bought by the young man at a high price two or three months earlier, lent color to this accusation.  Meanwhile the investigation was conducted as secretly as possible by the Duke in person, his brother-in-law Count Aliffe, and a certain Antonio Torando, with the sanction of the Podesta of Soriano.  After examining several witnesses, they became convinced