'I like to think, madonna, that you would have shown me the same charity even if there had been no misapprehension. I am the more grateful for what you have done because I choose to believe that in any case you would have done it. Then there is this handsome suit to be paid for, and, lastly and chiefly, the desire to serve a lady in need of service, which I believe is not an altogether strange desire in a man of sensibility. It has happened aforetime.' That was as near as he would go to the confession that she had beglamoured him. Since it was a state of mind that did not rest upon pure reason, it is one to which he would have been reluctant to confess even to himself. She pondered him, and it seemed to him that her searching glance laid bare all that he was and all that he was likely to be. 'These are slight and unworldly reasons,' she said at last. 'I am possibly an unworldly fellow.' 'You must be, indeed, to propose knight-errantry.' But her need, as he had already surmised and as he was later fully to understand, was great and urgent. It may almost have seemed to her, indeed, as if Providence had brought her this young man, not only for his own salvation, but for hers. 'The service may entail risk,' she warned him, 'and a risk far greater than any you have run to-night.' 'Risk sweetens enterprise,' he answered, 'and wit can conquer it.' Her smile broadened, almost she laughed. 'You have a high confidence in your wit, sir.' 'Whereas, you would say, the experience of the last four and twenty hours should make me humble. Its lesson, believe me, has not been lost. I am not again to be misled by appearances.' 'Well, here's to test you, then.' And she gave him her message, which was after all a very cautious one, the betrayal of which could hardly harm her. He was to seek the Lord Barbaresco, of whom she told him nothing beyond the fact that the gentleman dwelt in a house behind the cathedral, which any townsman would point out to him. He was to inquire after his health, about which, he was to add, the absence of news was making her uneasy. As a credential to the Lord Barbaresco she gave him the broken half of a gold ducat. 'To-morrow evening,' she concluded, 'you will find the garden-gate ajar again at about the same hour, and I shall be waiting.' CHAPTER VI THE WINDS OF FATE You behold Messer Bellarion treading the giddy slope of high and mysterious adventure, fortuitously launched upon a course whose end he was very far from discerning, but which most certainly was not the University of Pavia, the pursuit of Greek studies, and the recovery of an unblemished faith. Lorenzaccio da Trino has more to answer for than the acts of brigandage for which the law pursued him.