ewdly inferred that it imported to be gone.

"There is your ostler," quoth I at last. "He will do for one."

"He is the only man I have. My husband and my sons are gone to Pesaro."

"Yet spare us this one, and you shall be well paid his services."

But no bribe could tempt her to give way, and no doubt she was
well-advised, for she contended that there was work to be done such as
was beyond her years and strength, and that if she sent her ostler off,
as well might she close her inn--a thing that was impossible.

Here, then, was an obstacle with which I had not reckoned. It was
impossible to send the lady off alone, to travel a distance of some
ten leagues, and the most of it by night--for if she would make sure of
escaping, she must journey now without pause until she came to Pesaro.

And then, in a flash, it occurred to me that here lay the means, ready
to my hand, by avail of which I might boldly re-enter Pesaro despite
my banishment, and discharge my errand to Lucrezia Borgia. For, surely,
considering the mission on which ostensibly I should be returning--as
the saviour and protector of his kinswoman--Giovanni Sforza could not
enforce that ban against me. Next I bethought me of the other aspect
that the business wore. In fooling Ramiro I had thwarted the Borgia
ends; in rescuing Madonna Paola I had perhaps set at naught the Cardinal
of Valencia's aims. If so, what then? It would seem that because the
lady's eyes were mild and sweet, and because her beauty had so deeply
wrought upon me, I had indeed fooled away my chance of salvation from
the life and trade that were grown hateful to me. For back to Rome and
Cesare Borgia I should dare go no more. Clearly I had burned my boats,
and I had done it almost unthinkingly, acting upon the good impulse to
befriend this lady, and never reckoning the cost down to its total. For
all that the thing I had done, and what I might yet do, should offer me
the means I needed to enter Pesaro without danger to my neck, I did not
see that I was to derive great profit in the end--unless my profit lay
in knowing that I had advanced the ruin of Giovanni Sforza by delivering
my letter to Lucrezia. That at any rate was enough incentive clearly to
define for me the line that I should take through this tangle into which
the ever-jesting Fates had thrust me.

I was still at my thoughts, still pondering this most perplexing
situation, the hostess standing silent by the door, when suddenly
Ma