In the third year, then, of Count Antonio's outlawry, His Highness the Duke looked on the Lady Lucia and found that she was of full age for marriage. Therefore he resolved that she should be wed, and, since Robert de Beauregard, to whom he had purposed to give her, was dead, he chose from among his lords a certain gentleman of great estate and a favourite of his, by name Lorenzo, and sent word to Lucia that she had spent too much of her youth pining for what could not be hers, and must forthwith receive Lorenzo for her husband. But Lucia, being by now a woman and no more a timid girl, returned to His Highness a message that she would look on no other man than Antonio. On this the Duke, greatly incensed, sent and took her, and set her in a convent within the city walls, and made her know that there she should abide till her life's end, or until she should obey his command; and he charged the Abbess to treat her harshly and to break down her pride: and he swore that she should wed Lorenzo; or, if she were obstinate, then she should take the vows of a nun in the convent. Many weeks the Lady Lucia abode in the convent, resisting all that was urged upon her. But at last, finding no help from Antonio, being sore beset and allowed no rest, she broke one day into passionate and pitiful weeping, and bade the Abbess tell His Highness that, since happiness was not for her in this world, she would seek to find it in Heaven, and would take the vows, rendering all her estate into the Duke's hand, that he might have it, and give it to Lorenzo or to whom he would. Which message being told to Duke Valentine, weary of contending with her, and perchance secretly fearing that Antonio would slay Lorenzo as he had slain Robert, he cursed her for an obstinate wench, and bade her take the vows, and set a day for her to take them: but her estate he assumed into his own hand, and made from out of it a gift of great value to Lorenzo. And Lorenzo, they say, was well content thus to be quit of the matter. "For," said he, "while that devil is loose in the hills, no peace would there have been for the lady's husband." But when it came to the ears of Count Antonio that the Lady Lucia was to take the veil on the morrow of the feast of St. Prisian, his rage and affliction knew no bounds. "If need be," he cried, "I will attack the city with all my men, before I will suffer it." "Your men would be all killed, and she would take the veil none the less," said Tommasino. For Antonio had but fifty men, and although they were stout fellows and impossible to subdue so long as they stayed in the hills, yet their strength would have been nothing against a fortress and the Duke's array. "Then," said Antonio, "I will go alone and die alone."