Bona strove frantically to dissuade him from going. He read some confirmation of his shapeless suspicions in her urgency, and was the more determined. She persisted; he came near striking her in his fury, and finally drove her from his presence, weeping and clamorous. She was in despair, turning hither and thither, trusting no one. At length she bethought herself of an honest fellow, always a loyal friend and soldier of her lord, of whom, in this distracting pass, she might make use. She had spoken nothing to the Duke of her disposal of his favourite, Messer Lanti, leaving the explanation of her conduct to an auspicious moment. Now, in her emergency, she sent a message for Carlo’s instant release, bidding him repair without delay to the palace. She had no reason, nor logic, nor any particular morality. She was in need, and lusting for help—that was enough. The messenger sped, and returned, but so did not the prisoner with him. Bona, sobbing, feverish, at the wit’s end of her resources, went from member to member of her lord’s suite, imploring each to intervene. As well ask the jackalls to reprove the lion for his arrogance. At eleven the Duke set out. His valet and chronicler, Bernardino Corio, relates how, at this pass, his master’s behaviour seemed fraught with indecision and melancholy; how he put on, and then off, his coat of mail, because it made him look too stout; how he feared, yet was anxious to go, because ’some of his mistresses’ would be expecting him in the church (the true explanation of his unharnessing, perhaps); how he halted before descending the stairs; how he called for his children, and appeared hardly able to tear himself away from them; how Madonna Catherine rallied him with a kiss and a quip; how at length, reluctantly, he left the castle on foot, but, finding snow on the ground, decided upon mounting his horse. Viva! Viva! See the fine portly gentleman come forth—tall, handsome, they called him—in his petti-cote of crimson brocade, costly-furred and opened in front to reveal the doublet beneath, a blaze of gold-cloth torrid with rubies; see the flash and glitter that break out all over him, surface coruscations, as it were, of an inner fire; see his face, already chilling to ashes, livid beneath the sparkle of its jewelled berretino! Is it that his glory consumes himself? Viva! Viva!—if much shouting can frighten away the shadow that lies in the hollow of his cheek. It is thrown by one, invisible, that mounted behind him when he mounted, and now sits between his greatness and the sun. Viva! Viva! So, with the roar of life in his ears, he passes on to the eternal silence. As he rides he whips his head hither and thither, each glance of his eyes a quick furtive stab, a veritable _coup d’[oe]il_. He is gnawed and corroded with suspicion, mortally _nervous_—his manner lacks repose. It shall soon find it. He will make a stately recumbent figure on a tomb.