"Ah!" cried Visconti as if a sudden thought had struck him, "who else then, da Ribera?" "I cannot tell, only there is a dead lady in the garden; she is laid as if sleeping on the grass, quite dead." Visconti rose so suddenly that the sweep of his long sleeve sent the glasses crashing to the ground, and made Arezzo start. "It is Isotta d'Este!" he cried. "Mastino's wife!" "Isotta dead?" cried de Lana, and the words echoed around the room. "How should she be here, and dead?" "The dead only can answer you," said Visconti. "Now I can recall what 'twas Mastino said--something about her! Still, it may not be his duchess. As you say, how should she be dead, and here?" "How should she be dead?" asked de Lana again. "Yet truly what else----" he paused, keeping back his words, and his glance met the secretary's. Giannotto was remembering something: the figure of Visconti standing sullen, with a moody face, thinking on another dead woman; "Had she lived I would not have done it!" he had said. The secretary rose; now he understood. In this triumphant Visconti there was no sign of the spirit that had prompted that murmur, but the secretary understood. Close behind Giannotto was a fresco painting, a panel between the windows--St Sebastian in a glory, smiling, transfixed with arrows, brilliant against a background of blue. Giannotto, standing there half-dazed with his new thought, noticed it, and clutched the wooden ribbing underneath with something like a prayer on his lips. Might the saints and martyrs remember to him he had had no share in this! Visconti turned to leave the table, and with a clinking of armor and a dazzling display of scarlet and blue the nobles moved back; the sunshine was now golden and filling the room. "Can he be going to look at her?" thought the secretary, dully; then, stumbling over something as he moved forward, he glanced down and started. The next moment he looked round sharply to see if any eye was upon him, stooped quickly, and picked it up. It was a little stiletto, a thing dropped, perhaps last night, and overlooked, a tiny thing with a long, glittering blade. Giannotto slipped it into his dress, he hardly knew why--it gave him a feeling of security; it was a long time since Visconti's secretary had been armed, even by so much as this. "With good horses," said Visconti, drawing on his gloves, "we reach Magenta--when, de Lana?" "In two days, my lord." "And Turin?" "If there is no resistance----" began de Lana. Visconti laughed. "Resistance? Lombardy is ours, my good de Lana! Resistance----" "Is hardly wise," put in da Ribera. "And quite useless," said della Torre, with a low bow. The splendid group was passing Giannotto, standing dully beneath St Sebastian, when the Duke stopped. "Come, I may have need of you, Giannotto." The secretary's hand stole to his breast. He felt the handle of the stiletto, and wondered why he had picked it up.