“Why yes,” she mused, “it is the very thought that had occurred to me, and caused me to spurn the aid he proffered when last he was here.”

“Ah!” I cried.  “What aid was that?”

“You must know, Lazzaro,” said she, “that he comes often to Pesaro from Cesena, being a man in whom the Duke places great trust, and on whom he has bestowed considerable powers.  He never fails to lie at the Palace when he comes, and he seems to—­to have conceived a regard for me.  He is a man of twice my years,” she added hurriedly, “and haply looks upon me as he might upon a daughter.”

I sniffed the air.  I had heard of such men.

“A week ago, when last he came, I was cast down and grieved by the affair of this marriage, which Filippo had that day disclosed to me.  The Governor of Cesena, observing my sadness, sought my confidence with a kindliness of which you would scarce believe him capable; for he is a fierce and blustering man of war.  In the fulness of my heart there was nothing that seemed so desirable as a friendly ear into which I might pour the tale of my affliction.  He heard me gravely, and when I had done he placed himself at my disposal, assuring me that if I would but trust myself to him, he would defeat the ends of the House of Borgia.  Not until then did I seem to bethink me that he was the servant of that house, and his readiness to betray the hand that paid him sowed mistrust and a certain loathing of him in my mind.  I let him see it, perhaps, which was unwise, and, may be, even ungrateful.  He seemed deeply wounded, and the subject was abandoned.  But I have since thought that perhaps I acted with a rashness that was—­”

“With a rashness that was eminently justifiable,” I interrupted her.  “You could not have been better advised than to have mistrusted such a man.”

But touching this same Governor of Cesena, there was a fine surprise in store for me.  At dusk some two days later there was a sudden commotion in the courtyard of the Palace, and when I inquired of a groom into its cause, I was informed that his Excellency the Governor of Cesena had arrived.

Curious to see this man whose willingness to betray the house he served, where Madonna was concerned, was by no means difficult to probe, I descended to the banqueting-hall at supper time.

They were not yet at table when I entered, and a group was gathered in the centre of the room about a huge man, at sight of whose red head and crimson, brutal face I would have turned and sought again the refuge of my own quarters but that his wolf’s eye had already fastened on me.

“Body of God!” he swore, and that was all.  But his eyes were on me in a marvellous stare, as were now—­impelled by that oath of his—­the eyes of all the company.  We looked at each other for a moment, then a great laugh burst from him, shaking his vast bulk and wrinkling his hideous face.  He thrust the intervening men aside as if they had been a growth of sedges he would penetrate, and he advanced towards me; the Lord Filippo and his sister looking on with all the rest in interested surprise.