nor yet ungrateful. But this I
know, I were both naught and ungrateful, and the worst foe e'er you had,
did I take advantage of this mad fancy. Sure some ill spirit hath had
leave to afflict you withal. For 'tis all unnatural that a princess
adorned with every grace should abase her affections on a churl."

The princess withdrew her hand slowly from Gerard's wrist.

Yet as it passed lightly over his arm it seemed to linger a moment at
parting.

"You fear the daggers of my kinsmen," said she, half sadly, half
contemptuously.

"No more than I fear the bodkins of your women," said Gerard haughtily.
"But I fear God and the saints, and my own conscience."

"The truth, Gerardo, the truth! Hypocrisy sits awkwardly on thee.
Princesses, while they are young, are not despised for love of God, but
of some other woman. Tell me whom thou lovest; and if she is worthy thee
I will forgive thee."

"No she in Italy, upon my soul."

"Ah! there is one somewhere then. Where? where?"

"In Holland, my native country."

"Ah! Marie de Bourgoyne is fair, they say. Yet she is but a child."

"Princess, she I love is not noble. She is as I am. Nor is she so
fair as thou. Yet is she fair; and linked to my heart for ever by her
virtues, and by all the dangers and griefs we have borne together, and
for one another. Forgive me; but I would not wrong my Margaret for all
the highest dames in Italy."

The slighted beauty started to her feet, and stood opposite him, as
beautiful, but far more terrible than when she slapped Floretta, for
then her cheeks were red, but now they were pale, and her eyes full of
concentrated fury.

"This to my face, unmannered wretch," she cried. "Was I born to be
insulted, as well as scorned, by such as thou? Beware! We nobles brook
no rivals. Bethink thee whether is better, the love of a Cesarini, or
her hate: for after all I have said and done to thee, it must be love or
hate between us, and to the death. Choose now!"

He looked up at her with wonder and awe, as she stood towering over him
in her Roman toga, offering this strange alternative.

He seemed to have affronted a goddess of antiquity; he a poor puny
mortal.

He sighed deeply, but spoke not.

Perhaps something in his deep and patient sigh touched a tender chord in
that ungoverned creature; or perhaps the time had come for one passion
to ebb and another to flow. The princess sank languidly into a seat, and
the tears began to steal rapidly down he