red. "Nor do I blame you more
than I blame myself. But since I blame myself most bitterly--since I
despise and hate myself for what is past, you may judge what my feelings
are for you. And judging them, I think it were well you gave me leave to
go."

"I came to speak of other than ourselves, Ser Agostino," she answered,
all unmoved still by my scorn, or leastways showing nothing of what
emotions might be hers. "It is of that simpering daughter of my Lord of
Pagliano."

"There is nothing I could less desire to hear you talk upon," said I.

"It is so very like a man to scorn the thing I could tell him after he
has already heard it from me."

"The thing you told me was false," said I. "It was begotten of fear
to see your own base interests thwarted. It is proven so by the
circumstance that the Duke has sought the hand of Madonna Bianca for
Cosimo d'Anguissola."

"For Cosimo?" she cried, and I never saw her so serious and thoughtful.
"For Cosimo? You are sure of this?" The urgency of her tone was such
that it held me there and compelled my answer.

"I have it from my lord himself."

She knit her brows, her eyes upon the ground; then slowly she raised
them, and looked at me again, the same unusual seriousness and alertness
in every line of her face.

"Why, by what dark ways does he burrow to his ends?" she mused.

And then her eyes grew lively, her expression cunning and vengeful. "I
see it!" she exclaimed. "O, it is as clear as crystal. This is the Roman
manner of using complaisant husbands."

"Madonna!" I rebuked her angrily--angry to think that anyone should
conceive that Bianca could be so abused.

"Gesu!" she returned with a shrug. "The thing is plain enough if you
will but look at it. Here his excellency dares nothing, lest he should
provoke the resentment of that uncompromising Lord of Pagliano. But once
she is safely away--as Cosimo's wife..."

"Stop!" I cried, putting out a hand as if I would cover her mouth. Then
collecting myself. "Do you suggest that Cosimo could lend himself to so
infamous a compact?"

"Lend himself? That pander? You do not know your cousin. If you have any
interest in this Madonna Bianca you will get her hence without delay,
and see that Pier Luigi has no knowledge of the convent to which she is
consigned. He enjoys the privileges of a papal offspring, and there is
no sanctuary he will respect. So let the thing be done speedily and in
secret."

I looked at her between doubt a