"No, my lord," she answered, as with trembling uncertain feet she mounted, till she stood but one step below where his couch was placed; and then she fell on her knees on the highest step and clasped her hands, crying, "Have mercy, my lord, have mercy! Think, my dear lord, how I love him; for if he dies, I must die also, my lord. Ah, my lord, you have known love. You loved our sweet Lady Margherita; was not her name now on your lips? So I love Antonio, so he loves me. Ah, my lord, Christ Jesus teaches pity!" And she buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Then the Duke, his physician and now the Master of the Household also supporting him, stretched himself over the edge of his couch, and, putting out his hand with feverish strength, plucked the Lady Lucia's hands away from her face and gazed at her face. And when he had gazed a moment, he gave a great cry, "Ah, God!" and flung his arms up above his head and fell back into the arms of his physician, who laid him down on his couch, where he lay motionless, his eyes shut and his chin resting on his breast. And all looked at the physician, but he answered, "Nay, he is not dead yet." "Why tarries the signal?" asked Antonio of Lorenzo on the scaffold. "It must be that the Lady Lucia beseeches him for your life, my lord," answered Lorenzo. "Indeed heartily do I wish the Duke would hearken to her prayer." "He will not turn for her," said Antonio. But presently the report of what had passed spread from those round the Duke to the pikemen, and they, loving a marvel as most men do, must needs tell it to the people, and a murmur of wonder arose, and the report reached the guards at the scaffold, who came and told Lorenzo, in the hearing of Antonio, of the strange delusion that had come upon the Duke. "He must be sick to death," said Lorenzo. "I pray not," said Count Antonio. "For though he is a stern man, yet he is an able and just prince, and this fancy of his is very pitiful." "Do you spare pity for him?" asked Lorenzo. "Shall I not pity all who have lost their loves?" answered Antonio with a smile, and his eye rested on the form of the Lady Lucia kneeling by the Duke's couch. For hard on half an hour the Duke lay as he had fallen, but at last, his physician having used all his skill to rouse him, he opened his eyes; and he clutched his physician's hand and pointed to Lucia, asking, "Who is she?" "It is the Lady Lucia, my lord," answered the physician. "And there was none else?" asked the Duke in a low tremulous whisper. "I saw no other, my lord." "But I saw her," said the Duke. "I saw her even as I saw her last, when she lay on her bed and they took the child out of her dead arms." "It was the weakness of your malady, my lord, that made the vision before your eyes."