"If your highness was equally candid in your avowals to the Queen of Navarre," observed Gonzaga gravely,--"I can scarcely wonder at the hopes she is said to entertain of having won over the governor of Mons to the French interest, during her transit through Flanders." "Ay, indeed? Is such her boast?" cried the prince, laughing. "It may indeed be so!--for never saw I a woman less scrupulous in the choice or use of arms to fight her battles. But, trust me, whatever her majesty may have accomplished, is through no aiding or abetting of mine." "Yet surely the devoted attentions paid her by your highness"-- "My highness made them _appear_ devoted in proportion to his consciousness of their hollowness! But I promise you, my dear Ottavio, there is no tenderer leaning in my heart towards Margaret de Valois, than towards the most thicklipped of the divinities who competed for our smiles at Tunis." Gonzaga shrugged his shoulders. He was convinced that, for once, Don John was sinking the friend in the prince. His prolonged absence had perhaps discharged him from his post as confidant. "Trust me," cried the young soldier, discerning his misgivings--"I am as sincere in all this as becomes our friendship. But that God has gifted me with a happy temperament, I should scarcely support the disgusts of my present calling. It is much, my dear Gonzaga, to inherit as a birthright the brand of such an ignominy as mine. But as long as I trusted to conquer a happier destiny--to carve out for myself fortunes as glorious as those to which my blood all but entitles me--I bore my cross without repining. It was this ardent hope of distinction that lent vigour to my arm in battle--that taught prudence to my mind in council. I was resolved that even the base-born of Charles V. should die a king!"-- Gonzaga listened in startled silence. To hear the young viceroy thus bold in the avowal of sentiments, which of late he had been hearing imputed to him at the Escurial as the direst of crimes, filled him with amazement. "But these hopes have expired!" resumed Don John. "The harshness with which, on my return triumphant from Barbary, my brother refused to ratify the propositions of the Vatican in my favour, convinced me that I have nothing to expect from Philip beyond the perpetual servitude of a satellite of the King of Spain." Gonzaga glanced mechanically round the chamber at the emission of these treasonable words. But there was nothing in its rude stone walls to harbour an eavesdropper. "Nor is this all!" cried his noble friend. "My discovery of the unbrotherly sentiments of Philip has tended to enlighten me towards the hatefulness of his policy. The reserve of his nature--the harshness of his soul--the austerity of his bigotry--chill me to the marrow!--The Holy Inquisition deserves, in my estimation, a name the very antithesis of holy." "I _beseech_ your highness!" cried Ottavio Gonzaga--clasping his hands together in an irrepressible panic.