at closely clasped as if
she would sustain her in her trouble.

"_Not_ confiscation!" she pleaded. "Hath not this mother enough to
suffer in knowing that her child hath missed the highest trust? Shall we
add this also to her pain, and take from her the estates which have been
the home of her people for long ages? Shall she not take the vow of
fealty to the State, instead of her child? And for the Dama Ecciva--we
grieve that it must be exile--yet the safety of the Crown demandeth it.
Be merciful--dear people!"

It was a woman's reason--but a woman's heart, stronger than law or
precedent, had won the day.

XXXIV

"A confidential communication of deep import to Cyprus--so thou come at
once, and alone. 'The Prisoner in the Castle.'"

The Signor Aluisi Bernardini read the note a second time with frowning
brows, for there was more than one prisoner, even of this recent
conspiracy, in the castle, and the hand was disguised or unknown to him,
and he could but guess at the identity of the sender of this mysterious
message, which had been brought him, quite openly, by one of the castle
guards.

The man stood waiting at the door of his study, until he called to him:

"Thou hast a message for me from----?"

"The Dama Ecciva de Montferrat, Eccellentissimo," the messenger
answered, readily.

"Deliver it."

"I was to remind your Excellency that the galley will sail to-morrow for
Venice--if your Excellency should have despatches--the Dama de
Montferrat feared that it might not be known beyond the castle."

"Is this known within the castle and by order of the Castellan?"
Bernardini asked quickly, in surprise.

"Eccellentissimo, the word came to me by the Dama de Montferrat, in
confidence. I have no other message."

The Bernardini pondered a moment. She had meant him to feel that the
case was urgent, for no hint of the immediate sailing of the prisoner's
galley for Venetian waters had yet reached him, who was usually foremost
in any information that touched upon Venetian interests. It might be a
ruse, or a mere plausible excuse to her messenger.

"Is there aught else in which I may serve the Dama de Montferrat?" the
Bernardini asked with assumed nonchalance, partly to gain time to decide
upon his own course of action, yet hoping to throw some little light
upon the mystery.

"It is written in the note. Doth your Excellency bid me return alone?"

The man's manner was insistent: he had been shown a jewel of valu