sts are the same, Signor. And you who are the
friend of Henry of Navarre should know that the Grand Duke is anxious to
place his niece upon the throne of France. Should she set her will
against her uncle's ambition he would scruple at no perfidity or crime.
You wonder why I, who am in his service, should tell you this. It is
because I am strangely drawn to you. From the moment I saw that you
appreciated what I had written, that we spoke the same language, strove
after the same ideals, I was yours heart and soul. They talk of love at
first sight, a foolish matter between man and woman, but when two men
recognise that they are congenial spirits it is the most natural and
inevitable thing in all the world. And so I tell you again, be on your
guard for your personal safety. If, however unjustly, any distrust of
you should be awakened in the mind of the Grand Duke, if he imagined
that the Signorina had learned to care for you, then your life, and hers
as well, would not be worth one soldo."

This conversation occasioned the guest of the villa serious thought. It
obtruded itself in the very tales of intrigue, passion, and murder which
he read to drive it from his mind, those fascinating novelli with their
records of bloody hereditary vendettas, of innocent or guilty lovers
alike done to death by indiscriminating cruelty.

"Truly," he thought, "in Italy a woman's kiss and that of a poniard go
often in such close company that the sweet woman's mouth which lets love
in almost touches the red mouth of the wound which lets life out."

Though not so definitely explained, he had felt the presence of danger
before; but so long as it threatened himself alone it added a spice of
excitement to the adventure; now, however, that he realised what grave
consequences the least indiscretion on his part might bring upon Marie
de' Medici herself, he determined to be doubly circumspect.

With this intention he held himself aloof from the superb mundane life
of the villa, and, retiring to the library, occupied himself in
translating and rearranging old plays. But all day as he wrote, though
half unconsciously, his thoughts were with his fair hostess, and always
at the hour of the siesta of the Grand Duchess Marie de' Medici was with
him in person. It was on the second morning of his seclusion that she
had tapped at the door and offered her aid in his work; thus converting
the very means by which he sought to avoid her into a stratagem for the