One night as I sat in the gallery above the great hall, watching them footing it upon the mosaic floor below, Giuliana's deep, slow voice behind me stirred me out of my musings. She had espied me up there and had come to join me, although hitherto I had most sedulously avoided her, neither addressing her nor giving her the opportunity to address me since the first brazen speech on her arrival. “That white-faced lily, Madonna Bianca de' Cavalcanti, seems to have caught the Duke in her net of innocence,” said she. I started round as if I had been stung, and at sight of my empurpling face she slowly smiled, the same hateful smile that I had seen upon her face that day in the garden when Gambara had bargained for her with Fifanti. “You are greatly daring,” said I. “To take in vain the name of her white innocence?” she answered, smiling superciliously. And then she grew more serious. “Look, Agostino, we were friends once. I would be your friend now.” “It is a friendship, Madonna, best not given expression.” “Ha! We are very scrupulous--are we not?--since we have abandoned the ways of holiness, and returned to this world of wickedness, and raised our eyes to the pale purity of the daughter of Cavalcanti!” She spoke sneeringly. “What is that to you?” I asked. “Nothing,” she answered frankly. “But that another may have raised his eyes to her is something. I am honest with you. If this child is aught to you, and you would not lose her, you would do well to guard her more closely than you are wont. A word in season. That is all my message.” “Stay!” I begged her now, for already she was gliding away through the shadows of the gallery. She laughed over her shoulder at me--the very incarnation of effrontery and insolence. “Have I moved you into sensibility?” quoth she. “Will you condescend to questions with one whom you despise?--as, indeed,” she added with a stinging scorn, “you have every right to do.” “Tell me more precisely what you mean,” I begged her, for her words had moved me fearfully. “Gesu!” she exclaimed. “Can I be more precise? Must I add counsels? Why, then, I counsel that a change of air might benefit Madonna Bianca's health, and that if my Lord of Pagliano is wise, he will send her into retreat in some convent until the Duke's visit here is at an end. And I can promise you that in that case it will be the sooner ended. Now, I think that even a saint should understand me.” With that last gibe she moved resolutely on and left me. Of the gibe I took little heed. What imported was her warning. And I did not doubt that she had good cause to warn me. I remembered with a shudder her old-time habit of listening at doors. It was very probable that in like manner had she now gathered information that entitled her to give me such advice.