I stood in silence. Never had I felt my blood tingling more rapidly. My eyes seemed dimmed, though not by tears. Charles was still surveying me coldly, evidently expecting my answer. Realizing that to continue the present situation was impossible, I fell on one knee, and seized the Emperor’s left hand (which he yielded limply) and kissed it, then spoke hurriedly. “Your magnificent generosity, Sire, has deprived me of my reason. Until I regain it how dare I answer. Pardon my prayer for an interval until to-morrow, ere I answer you.” Charles’s pale face tinged with a faint shade of disappointment, but he beckoned for me to rise. “You, like your Luther,” he remarked with obvious irony, “take one day to hear, the next to answer. But your prayer is granted. Give me your word to-morrow when I breakfast.” He touched a silver bell upon the table. Instantly the doors opened, the attendants reëntered. As for me, I must have bowed decently, and departed past them. Surely I walked as men walk in their sleep. * * * * * I was prepared to endure threats, dishonor, imprisonment, death for the Cause--but not for this, dear God, not for this! No instant of respite was granted me for the barest reflection. Even on the other side of the cabinet doors a woman came towards me. I knew who she was by the fall and rustle of her dress ere ever I raised my eyes. It was Marianna. She wore a dress of sea green silk, close fitting and exquisite. White flowers shone in her hair. But I have praised her beauty often enough. I will not repeat. While I moved on in my trance, while I saw the grave Spanish courtiers looking at me very respectfully, as the man whom Majesty had honored with such privy audience, I felt her arm being put within my own. She led me back to the chamber above the Rhine where I had quitted Forli. “Ah! Gualtiero, _mio carissimo_,” she was saying close to my ear, “you have heard the Emperor, you have been offered the great embassy to Rome, you will be the most famous man in the world. They will worship the ground you tread upon,--ah! Gualtiero, Gualtiero.” “He has offered it, yes, Madonna.” My mien and voice were doubtless vacant and gloomy. “Offered it? Mother of mercies, and you have not accepted it? You turn mad!” “I prayed his Majesty for permission to defer my answer until to-morrow.” She looked on me with eyes flashing at once infinite wrath and equal compassion. “Till to-morrow? The most imperial proffer ever made in the world? The thing touching which my father came from Paris post-haste, and has conferred with the Emperor two whole nights? Is it you that rave, or do I not hear aright? Have you no words of gratitude to my father, to me whose part has not been small?” She had one hand upon either of my shoulders, and was trying to catch me, to fascinate, snake-wise, with her glances. A little roughly I put her away.