ity, it was all I could
desire. I should be glad to be released from all the misery and sorrow
into which I had been born.

I told him so in some few words. "You mean me well, my lord," I ended,
"and I thank you. But..."

"By God and the Saints!" he blazed, "I do not mean you well at all. I
mean you anything but well. Have I not said that I could kill you
with satisfaction? Whatever be the sins of Egidio Gambara, he is no
hypocrite, and he lets his enemies see his face unmasked."

"But, then," I cried, amazed, "why do you offer me my freedom?"

"Because this cursed populace is in such a temper that if you are
brought to trial I know not what may happen. As likely as not we shall
have an insurrection, open revolt against the Pontifical authority, and
red war in the streets. And this is not the time for it.

"The Holy Father requires the submission of these people. We are upon
the eve of Duke Pier Luigi's coming to occupy his new States, and it
imports that he should be well received, that he should be given a
loving welcome by his subjects. If, instead, they meet him with revolt
and defiance, the reasons will be sought, and the blame of the affair
will recoil upon me. Your cousin Cosimo will see to that. He is a very
subtle gentleman, this cousin of yours, and he has a way of working to
his own profit. So now you understand. I have no mind to be crushed in
this business. Enough have I suffered already through you, enough am
I suffering in resigning my governorship. So there is but one way
out. There must be no trial to-morrow. It must be known that you have
escaped. Thus they will be quieted, and the matter will blow over. So
now, Ser Agostino, we understand each other. You must go."

"And whither am I to go?" I cried, remembering my mother and that
Mondolfo--the only place of safety--was closed to me by her cruelly
pious hands.

"Whither?" he echoed. "What do I care? To Hell--anywhere, so that you
get out of this."

"I'd sooner hang," said I quite seriously.

"You'ld hang and welcome, for all the love I bear you," he answered, his
impatience growing. "But if you hang blood will be shed, innocent lives
will be lost, and I myself may come to suffer."

"For you, sir, I care nothing," I answered him, taking his own tone, and
returning him the same brutal frankness that he used with me. "That you
deserve to suffer I do not doubt. But since other blood than yours might
be shed as you say, since innocent lives migh