illy. But of going he made no shift.

"Call your men," he answered her, in a choking voice. "Do your will on
me. Flog me to the bone or to the death--let that be the reward of all
that I have done, all that I have risked, all that I have sacrificed to
serve you. It were of a piece with your other actions."

Her eyes sought his in the gloom, her bosom heaving wildly in her
endeavours to master herself before she spoke.

"Messer Gonzaga," said she at last, "I'll not deny that you served me
faithfully in the matter of my escape from Urbino----"

"Why speak of it?" he sneered. "It was a service of which you but avail
yourself until another offered on whom you might bestow your favour and
the supreme command of your fortress. Why speak of it?"

"To show you that the service you allude to is now paid," she riposted
sternly. "By reproaching me you have taken payment, and by insulting me
you have stamped out my gratitude."

"A most convenient logic yours," he mocked. "I am cast aside like an
outworn garment, and the garment is accounted paid for because through
much hard usage it has come to look a little threadbare."

And now it entered her mind that perhaps there was some justice in what
he said. Perhaps she had used him a little hardly.

"Do you think, Gonzaga," she said, and her tone was now a shade more
gentle, "that because you have served me you may affront me, and that
knight who has served me, also, and----"

"In what can such service as his compare with mine? What has he done
that I have not done more?"

"Why, when the men rebelled here----"

"Bah! Cite me not that. Body of God! it is his trade to lead such swine.
He is one of themselves. But for the rest, what has such a man as this
to lose by his share in your rebellion, compared with such a loss as
mine must be?"

"Why, if things go ill, I take it he may lose his life," she answered,
in a low voice. "Can you lose more?"

He made a gesture of impatience.

"If things go ill--yes. It may cost him dearly. But if they go well,
and this siege is raised, he has nothing more to fear. Mine is a parlous
case. However ends this siege, for me there will be no escape from the
vengeance of Gian Maria and Guidobaldo. They know my share in it. They
know that your action was helped by me, and that without me you could
never have equipped yourself for such resistance. Whatever may betide
you and this Ser Franceseo, for me there will be no escape."

She drew a deep