pale purity of the daughter of Cavalcanti!" She spoke
sneeringly.

"What is that to you?" I asked.

"Nothing," she answered frankly. "But that another may have raised his
eyes to her is something. I am honest with you. If this child is aught
to you, and you would not lose her, you would do well to guard her more
closely than you are wont. A word in season. That is all my message."

"Stay!" I begged her now, for already she was gliding away through the
shadows of the gallery.

She laughed over her shoulder at me--the very incarnation of effrontery
and insolence.

"Have I moved you into sensibility?" quoth she. "Will you condescend
to questions with one whom you despise?--as, indeed," she added with a
stinging scorn, "you have every right to do."

"Tell me more precisely what you mean," I begged her, for her words had
moved me fearfully.

"Gesu!" she exclaimed. "Can I be more precise? Must I add counsels?
Why, then, I counsel that a change of air might benefit Madonna Bianca's
health, and that if my Lord of Pagliano is wise, he will send her into
retreat in some convent until the Duke's visit here is at an end. And
I can promise you that in that case it will be the sooner ended. Now, I
think that even a saint should understand me."

With that last gibe she moved resolutely on and left me.

Of the gibe I took little heed. What imported was her warning. And I
did not doubt that she had good cause to warn me. I remembered with a
shudder her old-time habit of listening at doors. It was very probable
that in like manner had she now gathered information that entitled her
to give me such advice.

It was incredible. And yet I knew that it was true, and I cursed my
blindness and Cavalcanti's. What precisely Farnese's designs might be I
could not conceive. It was hard to think that he should dare so much as
Giuliana more than hinted. It may be that, after all, there was no more
than just the danger of it, and that her own base interests urged her to
do what she could to avert it.

In any case, her advice was sound; and perhaps, as she said, the removal
of Bianca quietly might be the means of helping Pier Luigi's unwelcome
visit to an end.

Indeed, it was so. It was Bianca who held him at Pagliano, as the
blindest idiot should have perceived.

That very night I would seek out Cavalcanti ere I retired to sleep.

CHAPTER VI. THE TALONS OF THE HOLY OFFICE

Acting upon my resolve, I went to wait for Cavalcanti