have conquered."

She had halted, a pace or two from me, with downcast eyes. She said
it very slowly, and I stared at her and answered with an unmeaning
laugh.

"Forgive me, Princess. I--I fancy my poor wits have been shaken and
need a little time to recover. At any rate, I do not understand
you."

"You have conquered," she repeated in a low voice that dragged upon
the words. Then, after a pause,--"You remember, once, promising me
that at the last I should come and place my neck under your
foot . . ." She glanced up at me and dropped her eyes again. "Yes,
I see that you remember. _Eccu_--I am here."

"I remember, Princess: but even yet I do not understand. Why, and
for what, should you beseech me?"

"In the first place for death. I am your wife . . ." She broke off
with a shiver. "There is something in the name, _messere_--is there
not?--that should move you to kindness, as a sportsman takes his game
not unkindly to break its neck. That is all I ask of you--"

"Princess!"

She lifted a hand. "--except that you will let me say what I have to
say. You shall think hard thoughts of me, and I am going to make
them harder; but for your own sake you shall put away vile ones-if
you can."

I stared at her stupidly dizzied a little with the words _I am your
wife_, humming in my brain. Or say that I am naturally not
quick-witted, and I will plead that for once my dullness did me no
discredit.

At all events it saved me for the moment: for while I stared at her,
utterly at a loss, a crackle of twigs warned us, and we turned
together as, by the pathway leading from the high-road, the bushes
parted and the face of Marc'antonio peered through upon the clearing.

"Salutation, O Princess!" said he gravely, and stepped out of cover
attended by Stephanu, who likewise saluted.

The Princess drew herself up imperiously. "I thought, O Stephanu,
that I had made plain my orders, that you two were neither to follow
nor to watch me?"

"Nevertheless," Marc'antonio made answer, "when one misses a comrade
and hears, at a little distance, the firing of a volley . . . not to
mention that some one has been burning gunpowder hereabouts," he
wound up, sniffing the air with an expression that absurdly reminded
me of our Vicar, at home, tasting wine.

"I warn you, O Marc'antonio," said the Princess, "to be wise and ask
no more questions."

"I have asked none, O Princess," he answered again, still very
gravely, and afte