to add the announcement of Francesco's banishment from Babbiano and his
notorious unwillingness to mount his cousin's throne. He had meant to
make her understand that had Francesco been so minded, he had no need
to stoop to such an act as this that she imputed to him. But she had cut
him short, and with angry words and angrier threats she had driven him
from her presence.

And so she was gone to Mass, and the fool had taken shelter in the porch
of the gallery, that there he might vent some of his ill-humour--or
indeed indulge it--in pondering the obtuseness of woman and the
insidiousness of Gonzaga, to whom he never doubted that this miserable
state of things was due.

And as he sat there--a grotesque, misshapen figure in gaudy motley--an
ungovernable rage possessed him. What was to become of them now? Without
the Count of Aquila's stern support the garrison would have forced her
to capitulate a week ago. What would betide, now that the restraint of
his formidable command was withdrawn?

"She will know her folly when it's too late. It's the way of women," he
assured himself. And, loving his mistress as he did, his faithful soul
was stricken at the thought. He would wait there until she returned from
Mass, and then she should hear him--all should hear him. He would
not permit himself to be driven away again so easily. He was intently
turning over in his mind what he would say, with what startling,
pregnant sentence he would compel attention, when he was startled by
the appearance of a figure on the chapel steps. Sudden and quietly as an
apparition it came, but it bore the semblance of Romeo Gonzaga.

At sight of him, Peppe instinctively drew back into the shadows of the
porch, his eyes discerning the suspicious furtiveness of the courtier's
movements, and watching them with a grim eagerness. He saw Romeo look
carefully about him, and then descend the steps on tiptoe, evidently
so that no echo of his footfalls should reach those within the chapel.
Then, never suspecting the presence of Peppe, he sped briskly across the
yard and vanished through the archway that led to the outer court. And
the fool, assured that some knowledge of the courtier's purpose would
not be amiss, set out to follow him.

In his room under the Lion's Tower the Count of Aquila had spent a
restless night, exercised by those same fears touching the fate of
the castle that had beset the fool, but less readily attributing his
confinement to Gonzaga