y in a rude, brown way, and strong, to judge by the muscular arms
which were bared to the elbow.

Interest quickened her face at sight of so unusual a patron. She
slouched forward, wiping her hands upon her hips as she came, and pulled
out a stool for me at the long trestle-table that ran down the middle of
the floor.

Grouped about the upper end of this table sat four men of the peasant
type, sun-tanned, bearded, and rudely garbed in loose jerkins and cross
gartered leg cloths.

A silence had fallen upon them as I entered, and they too were now
inspecting me with a frank interest which in their simple way they made
no attempt to conceal.

I sank wearily to the stool, paying little heed to them, and in answer
to the girl's invitation to command her, I begged for meat and bread
and wine. Whilst she was preparing these, one of the men addressed me
civilly; and I answered him as civilly but absently, for I had enough of
other matters to engage my thoughts. Then another of them questioned me
in a friendly tone as to whence I came. Instinctively I concealed the
truth, answering vaguely that I was from Castel Guelfo--which was the
neighbourhood in which I had overtaken my Lord Gambara and Giuliana.

"And what do they say at Castel Guelfo of the things that are happening
in Piacenza?" asked another.

"In Piacenza?" quoth I. "Why, what is happening in Piacenza?"

Eagerly, with an ardour to show themselves intimate with the affairs of
towns, as is the way of rustics, they related to me what already I had
gathered to be the vulgar version of Fifanti's death. Each spoke in
turn, cutting in the moment another paused to breathe, and sometimes
they spoke together, each anxious to have the extent of his information
revealed and appreciated.

And their tale, of course, was that Gambara, being the lover of
Fifanti's wife, had dispatched the doctor on a trumped-up mission, and
had gone to visit her by night. But that the suspicious Fifanti lying
near by in wait, and having seen the Cardinal enter, followed him soon
after and attacked him, whereupon the Lord Gambara had slain him. And
then that wily, fiendish prelate had sought to impose the blame upon the
young Lord of Mondolfo, who was a student in the pedant's house, and
he had caused the young man's arrest. But this the Piacentini would not
endure. They had risen, and threatened the Governor's life; and he was
fled to Rome or Parma, whilst the authorities to avoid a scandal h