"She will be cured after the wedding," said the Duke. "But see that she be well guarded, Robert; let a company of your men watch her. I have known the bride to be missing on a marriage day ere now." "If he can touch her, he may wed her," cried Robert. "The pikemen are close about her house, and she can neither go in nor come forth without their knowledge." "It is well," said the Duke. "Yet delay not. They are stubborn men, these Counts of Monte Velluto." Now had the Lady Lucia been of a spirit as haughty as her lover's, it may be that she would have refused to wed Robert de Beauregard. But she was afraid. When Antonio was with her, she had clung to him, and he loved her the more for her timidity. With him gone and forbidden to come near her, she dared not resist the Duke's will nor brave his displeasure; so that a week before the day which the Duke had appointed for the wedding, she sent to Antonio, bidding him abandon a hope that was vain and set himself to forget a most unhappy lady. "Robert shall not have her," said Antonio, putting the letter in his belt. "Then the time is short," said Tommasino. They were walking together on the terrace before Antonio's house, whence they looked on the city across the river. Antonio cast his eye on the river and on the wall of the Duke's garden that ran along it; fair trees, shrubs, and flowers lined the top of the wall, and the water gleamed in the sunshine. "It is strange," said Antonio, musing, "that one maiden can darken for a man all the world that God lights with his sun. Yet since so it is, Tommasino, a man can be but a man; and being a man, he is a poor man, if he stand by while another takes his love." "And that other a stranger, and, as I swear, a cut-throat," added Tommasino. When they had dined and evening began to come on, Antonio made his servants saddle the best horses in his stable--though, indeed, the choice was small, for Antonio was not rich as a man of his rank counts riches--and the two rode down the hill towards the city. But, as they went, Antonio turned once and again in his saddle and gazed long at the old gray house, the round tower, and the narrow gate. "Why look behind, and not forward?" asked Tommasino. "Because there is a foreboding in me," answered Antonio, "that it will be long before that gate again I pass through. Were there a hope of persuading you, Tommasino, I would bid you turn back, and leave me to go alone on this errand." "Keep your breath against when you have to run," laughed Tommasino, pricking his horse and tossing his hair, dark as Antonio's was fair, back from his neck.