was
thrust open and Lucagnolo appeared on the threshold, jaded and worn with
hard riding.

A certain excitement arose in me at sight of him, despite my confidence
that he must be returning empty-handed.

Ramiro rose, pushed back his chair and advanced towards the new-comer.

"Well?" he demanded. "What news?"

"Excellency, the girl is here."

That answer seemed to turn me into stone, so great was the shock of this
sudden shattering of the confidence that had sustained me.

"My search in the country failing," pursued the captain, as he came
forward, "I made bold to exceed your orders by pushing my inquiries as
far as the village of Cattolica. There I found her after some little
labour."

Surely I dreamt. Surely, I told myself, this was not possible. There was
some mistake. Lucagnolo had drought some wench whom he believed to be
Madonna Paola.

But even as I was assuring myself of this, the door opened again, and
between two men-at-arms, white as death, her garments stained with mud
and all but reduced to rags, and her eyes wild with a great fear, came
my beloved Paola.

With a sound that was as a grunt of satisfaction, Ramiro strode forward
to meet her. But her eyes travelled past him and rested upon me,
standing there between the leather-clad executioners with the cords of
the torture pinioning my wrists, and I saw the anguish deepen in their
blue depths.

CHAPTER XIX. DOOMED

Across the length of that hall our eyes met--hers and mine--and held
each other's glances. To me the room and all within it formed an
indistinct and misty picture, from out of which there clearly gleamed my
Paola's sweet, white face.

All at the table had risen with Ramiro, and now, copying their leader,
they bared their heads in outward token of such respect as certainly
would have been felt by any men less abandoned than were they before so
much saintly beauty and distress.

Lucagnolo had stepped aside, and Ramiro was now bowing low and
ceremoniously before Madonna. His face I could not see, since his back
was towards me, but his tones, as they floated across the hall to where
I stood, came laden with subservience.

"Madonna, I give praise and thanks to Heaven for this," said he. "I was
afflicted by the gravest misgivings for your safety, and I am more than
thankful to behold you safe and sound."

There was a hypocritical flavour of courtliness about his words, and
a mincing of his tones that suggested the efforts of a