ned so closely drawn. Whom did it contain?
Could it be Giuliana? Had Cosimo spoken the truth when he said that she
had gone to Gambara for shelter?

A little while ago I had sighed for death and exulted in the chance of
expiation and of purging myself of the foulness of sin. And now, at
the sudden thought that occurred to me, I fell a prey to an insensate
jealousy touching the woman whom I had lately loathed as the cause of my
downfall. O, the inconstancy of the human heart, and the eternal battles
in such poor natures as mine between the knowledge of right and the
desire for wrong!

It was in vain that I sought to turn my thoughts to other things;
in vain that I cast them back upon my recent condition and my recent
resolves; in vain that I remembered the penitence of yestermorn, the
confession at Fra Gervasio's knee, and the strong resolve to do penance
and make amends by the purity of all my after-life. Vain was it all.

I turned my mule about, and still wrestling with my conscience, choking
it, I rode down the hill again, and back across the bridge, and then
away to the south, to follow Messer Gambara and set an end to doubt.

I must know. I must! It was no matter that conscience told me that here
was no affair of mine; that Giuliana belonged to the past from which I
was divorced, the past for which I must atone and seek forgiveness. I
must know. And so I rode along the dusty highway in pursuit of Messer
Gambara, who was proceeding, I imagined, to join the Duke at Parma.

I had no difficulty in following them. A question here, and a question
there, accompanied by a description of the party, was all that was
necessary to keep me on their track. And ever, it seemed to me from the
answers that I got, was I lessening the distance that separated us.

I was weak for want of food, for the last time that I had eaten was
yesterday at noon, at Mondolfo; and then but little. Yet all I had this
day were some bunches of grapes that I stole in passing from a vineyard
and ate as I trotted on along that eternal Via Aemilia.

It was towards noon, at last, that a taverner at Castel Guelfo informed
me that my party had passed through the town but half an hour ahead of
me. At the news I urged my already weary beast along, for unless I made
good haste now it might well happen that Parma should swallow up Gambara
and his party ere I overtook them. And then, some ten minutes later,
I caught a flutter of garments half a mile or so ahe