“Since... since when have you thought thus?” “Since this morning, when I kissed you,” I answered fiercely. She sank into a chair beyond the table and stretched a hand across it to me, inviting the clasp of mine. “But if this is so, why leave us?” “Because I am afraid,” I answered. “Because... O God! Giuliana, do you not see?” And I sank my head into my hands. Steps shuffled along the corridor. I looked up sharply. She set a finger to her lips. There fell a knock, and old Busio stood before us. “Madonna,” he announced, “my Lord the Cardinal-legate is below and asks for you.” I started up as if I had been stung. So! At this hour! Then Messer Fifanti's suspicions did not entirely lack for grounds. Giuliana flashed me a glance ere she made answer. “You will tell my Lord Gambara that I have retired for the night and that... But stay!” She caught up a quill and dipped it in the ink-horn, drew paper to herself, and swiftly wrote three lines; then dusted it with sand, and proffered that brief epistle to the servant. “Give this to my lord.” Busio took the note, bowed, and departed. After the door had closed a silence followed, in which I paced the room in long strides, aflame now with the all-consuming fire of jealousy. I do believe that Satan had set all the legions of hell to achieve my overthrow that night. Naught more had been needed to undo me than this spur of jealousy. It brought me now to her side. I stood over her, looking down at her between tenderness and fierceness, she returning my glance with such a look as may haunt the eyes of sacrificial victims. “Why dared he come?” I asked. “Perhaps... perhaps some affair connected with Astorre...” she faltered. I sneered. “That would be natural seeing that he has sent Astorre to Parma.” “If there was aught else, I am no party to it,” she assured me. How could I do other than believe her? How could I gauge the turpitude of that beauty's mind--I, all unversed in the wiles that Satan teaches women? How could I have guessed that when she saw Fifanti speak to that lad at the gate that afternoon she had feared that he had set a spy upon the house, and that fearing this she had bidden the Cardinal begone? I knew it later. But not then. “Will you swear that it is as you say?” I asked her, white with passion. As I have said, I was standing over her and very close. Her answer now was suddenly to rise. Like a snake came she gliding upwards into my arms until she lay against my breast, her face upturned, her eyes languidly veiled, her lips a-pout. “Can you do me so great a wrong, thinking you love me, knowing that I love you?” she asked me.