for my sympathy; and I,
distraught, inflamed by tone and look, answered by uttering her name for
the first time.

"Giuliana!"

Having uttered it I dared not look at her. But I stooped to kiss the
hand which she had left in mine. And having kissed it I started upright
and made to advance again; but she snatched her hand from my clasp and
waved me away, at once so imperiously and beseechingly that I turned and
went to shut myself in the library with my bewilderment.

For full two days thereafter, for no reason that I could clearly give,
I avoided her, and save at table and in her husband's presence we were
never once together.

The repasts were sullen things at which there was little said, Madonna
sitting in a frozen dignity, and the doctor, a silent man at all times,
being now utterly and forbiddingly mute.

But once my Lord Gambara supped with us, and he was light and trivial
as ever, an incarnation of frivolity and questionable jests, apparently
entirely unconscious of Fifanti's chill reserve and frequent sneers.
Indeed, I greatly marvelled that a man of my Lord Gambara's eminence and
Governor of Piacenza should so very amiably endure the boorishness of
that pedant.

Explanation was about to be afforded me.

On the third day, as we were dining, Giuliana announced that she was
going afoot into the town, and solicited my escort. It was an honour
that never before had been offered me. I reddened violently, but
accepted it, and soon thereafter we set out, just she and I together.

We went by way of the Fodesta Gate, and passed the old Castle of Sant'
Antonio, then in ruins--for Gambara was demolishing it and employing
the material to construct a barrack for the Pontifical troops that
garrisoned Piacenza. And presently we came upon the works of this new
building, and stepped out into mid-street to avoid the scaffoldings, and
so pursued our way into the city's main square--the Piazza del Commune,
overshadowed by the red-and-white bulk of the Communal Palace. This
was a noble building, rather in the Saracenic manner, borrowing a very
warlike air from the pointed battlements that crowned it.

Near the Duomo we came upon a great concourse of people who were staring
up at the iron cage attached to the square tower of the belfry near its
summit. In this cage there was what appeared at first to be a heap of
rags, but which presently resolved itself into a human shape, crouching
in that narrow, cruel space, exposed ther