d her companions.

At the entrance of the room, which she deemed to be Piero's--they had
never cohabited there, or indeed anywhere, she knew not where he
slept--Eleanora paused, affrighted. She had heard a rustle! she had seen
something! it was a hand held beyond the arras!--and there was a
poignard within its grasp!

E'er she could cry out or take a step backwards, a sudden, savage blow
struck her breast--she fell!--stabbed to death! The hand was the hand of
Piero de' Medici!

Eleanora was dead! Her life's blood crimsoned, in a gory stream, the
marble lintel, and Piero gazed at the victim of his desertion, lust, and
hate--he was mad!

Kneeling upon his knees in the hellish darkness, he tried to stanch that
ruddy stream. Then he laved his hands in her hot blood and conveyed some
to his raging lips! Reason presently asserted herself; and, throwing
himself prostrate along the floor, he banged his head, thereupon calling
out in a frenzy of remorse for mercy for his deed!

"God of Heaven," he pleaded, "judge between my wife and me--I vow that I
will do penance for my deed, and never wed again."

The short summer's night early gave place to the dawn--not rosy that
sad morning, but overcast--gloom was in everything. Piero was still
praying by his dead wife's side when the tramp of footsteps upon the
gravel outside the house fell upon his ears. Swiftly he ran and closed
the entrance-doors, and then calling in a creature of his--a base-born
_medico_--he ordered him to make, there and then, an autopsy of the
corpse, and report according to his express instructions.

"Death from heart failure and the rupture of an artery," such ran the
medical certificate of death! Miserable Eleanora di Piero de' Medici was
buried ceremoniously in the family vault at San Lorenzo, and Piero made
a full confession to his brother, the Grand Duke.

Francesco counselled him to leave Florence at once, and seek a temporary
home at the Court of Madrid, where he might inform his kinsman by
marriage--the King of Spain--of the truth about Eleanora's death. It was
reported at the time that Piero gained possession of Eleanora's child,
Cosimo, and took him away with him from Florence; but what became of the
unfortunate little fellow no one ever knew--probably he went home to his
mother in Paradise just to be out of the way!

Don Piero was appointed by King Philip to a command in the war with
Portugal, but, whilst he distinguished himself by bravery a