t. I had no mind to tell her what motives had impelled
Lucrezia Borgia to rescue me, nor on what errand I had gone to Rome and
was from Rome returning.

She had heard me in silence, and now that I had done, she heaved a sigh,
for which gentle expression of pity out of my heart I thanked her. We
were silent, thereafter, for a little while. At length she turned her
head to regard me in the light of the now declining moon.

"Messer Biancomonte," said she, and the sound of the old name, falling
from her lips, thrilled me with a joy unspeakable, and seemed already to
reinvest me in my old estate, "Messer Biancomonte, you have done me in
these four-and-twenty hours such service as never did knight of old for
any lady--and you did it, too, out of the most disinterested and noble
of motives, proving thereby how truly knightly is that heart of yours,
which, for my sake, has all but beat its last to-night. You must journey
on to Pesaro with me despite this banishment of which you have told me.
I will be surety that no harm shall come to you. I could not do less,
and I shall hope to do far more. Such influence as I may prove to have
with my cousin of Pesaro shall be exerted all on your behalf, my
friend; and if in the nature of Giovanni Sforza there be a tithe of the
gratitude with which you have inspired me, you shall, at least, have
justice, and Biancomonte shall be yours again."

I was silent for a spell, so touched was I by the kindness she
manifested me--so touched, indeed, and so unused to it that I forgot how
amply I had earned it, and how rudely she had used me ere that was done.

"Alas!" I sighed. "God knows I am no longer fit to sit in the house of
the Biancomonte. I am come too low, Madonna."

"That Lazzaro, after whom you are named," she answered, "had come yet
lower. But he lived again, and resumed his former station. Take your
courage from that."

"He lived not at the mercy of Giovanni of Pesaro," said I.

There was a fresh pause at that. Then--"At least," she urged me, "you'll
come to Pesaro with me?"

"Why yes," said I. "I could not let you go alone." And in my heart I
felt a pang of shame, and called myself a cur for making use of her as I
was doing to reach the Court of Giovanni Sforza.

"You need fear no consequences," she promised me. "I can be surety for
that at least."

In the east a brighter, yellower light than the moon's began to show.
It was the dawn, from which I gathered that it must be appro