"Only, can it be the Duchess?" said da Ribera. "I have never seen Isotta d'Este, so cannot tell. I left her where I found her--on the grass, beneath those laurels. But that it is a lady----" He pointed as he spoke to a distant bush, round which tall lilies grew. "It is the Duchess!" cried another. "How should she be dead?" asked de Lana, and his glance again sought the secretary's. "How indeed?" said Visconti, with a curious smile. "And yet there are enough ways of dying abroad. I will see for myself--so that if it indeed be Isotta d'Este she may have fitting honor----" The group moved forward. The advance of the army was already marching past the walls of the garden, past the gate through which Mastino had ridden; the pennons from their lances showed above the yellow jasmine that covered the stonework, and the drums beat loud as Visconti and his company reached the laurel clump and stood looking down at the silent figure in the crushed and bedraggled white and purple. "Isotta d'Este!" said Visconti, under his breath, and yet with an unmoved face, that showed no surprise. "Dead!" said de Lana, after a pause, and looked at him. Visconti laughed softly, and turned with shining eyes. "Did I not tell you Della Scala was mad--did we not see it for ourselves last night?" he said. "So it is the Duchess?" whispered da Ribera. "She was very beautiful, they say." She lay where they had drawn her from her shelter underneath the laurels, her dress clinging close, her head turned away. Mastino had wrapped her round carefully, with a clumsy tenderness; wrapped her veil about her face, and laid his own cloak over her to shield her from the night and rain. And his last whisper was for her--an appeal to some one's humanity to see that Visconti should not look upon his victim's face, should not defile her with his touch. It rushed on Giannotto with the certainty of conviction--he had caught only the ghostly whisper, but he was sure in this moment of the sense of it; and the music, the colors and sunshine, and splendor and pomp of triumph, and Gian Visconti's cold, mocking face began to dance before Giannotto's vision like figures and fancies of a dream. He heard Visconti speak to Arezzo, saw Arezzo stoop and lift the mantle, and he moved back a step and put his hand to his breast. "Isotta d'Este!" said Visconti, turning to the others, and pointing down to the dead uncovered face. "Now what was she to lose everything for?" "His wife," said de Lana, and turned his head away. "Yes, my friend--do not forget it: _Della Scala's_ wife!" and Visconti touched him on the shoulder warningly. The group turned to go, and the secretary saw it with a feeling of relief, when by some sudden impulse Visconti stepped back, and stood looking down once at the poor white face.