I put her from me. I knelt and kissed the hem of her mourning gown. “Forgive me, sweet.” I besought her very humbly. “My poor Agostino,” was all she answered me, what time her fingers fluttered gently over my sable hair. Thereafter I shunned her for a whole week, and was never in her company save at meals under the eyes of our attendants. At last, one day in the early part of September, on the very anniversary of her father's death--the eighth of that month it was, and a Thursday--came Galeotto with a considerable company of men-at-arms; and that night he was gay and blithe as I had never seen him in these twelve months past. When we were alone, the cause of it, which already I suspected, at last transpired. “It is the hour,” he said very pregnantly. “His sands are swiftly running out. To-morrow, Agostino, you ride with me to Piacenza. Falcone shall remain here to captain the men in case any attempt should be made upon Pagliano, which is not likely.” And now he told us of the gay doings there had been in Piacenza for the occasion of the visit of the Duke's son Ottavio--that same son-in-law of the Emperor whom the latter befriended, yet not to the extent of giving him the duchy in his father's place when that father should have gone to answer for his sins. Daily there had been jousts and tournaments and all manner of gaieties, for which the Piacentini had been sweated until they could sweat no more. Having fawned upon the people that they might help him to crush the barons, Farnese was now crushing the people whose service he no longer needed. Extortion had reduced them to poverty and despair and their very houses were being pulled down to supply material for the new citadel, the Duke recking little who might thus be left without a roof over his head. “He has gone mad,” said Galeotto, and laughed. “Pier Luigi could not more effectively have played his part so as to serve our ends. The nobles he alienated long ago, and now the very populace is incensed against him and weary of his rapine. It is so bad with him that of late he has remained shut in the citadel, and seldom ventures abroad, so as to avoid the sight of the starving faces of the poor and the general ruin that he is making of that fair city. He has given out that he is ill. A little blood-letting will cure all his ills for ever.” Upon the morrow Galeotto picked thirty of his men, and gave them their orders. They were to depose their black liveries, and clad as countryfolk, but armed as countryfolk would be for a long journey, they were severally to repair afoot to Piacenza, and assemble there upon the morning of Saturday at the time and place he indicated. They went, and that afternoon we followed. “You will come back to me, Agostino?” Bianca said to me at parting. “I will come back,” I answered, and bowing I left her, my heart very heavy.