erwhelmed with confusion, I went out--a knight-errant with
a shorn crest.

CHAPTER IV. MY LORD GAMBARA CLEARS THE GROUND

I had angered her! Worse; I had exposed her to humiliation at the hands
of that unworthy animal who soiled her in thought with the slime of
his suspicions. Through me she had been put to the shameful need of
listening at a door, and had been subjected to the ignominy of being so
discovered. Through me she had been mocked and derided!

It was all anguish to me. For her there was no shame, no humiliation, no
pain I would not suffer, and take joy in the suffering so that it be for
her. But to have submitted that sweet, angelic woman to suffering--to
have incurred her just anger! Woe me!

I came to the table that evening full of uneasiness, very unhappy,
feeling it an effort to bring myself into her presence and endure be it
her regard or her neglect. To my relief she sent word that she was not
well and would keep her chamber; and Fifanti smiled oddly as he stroked
his blue chin and gave me a sidelong glance. We ate in silence, and when
the meal was done, I departed, still without a word to my preceptor, and
went to shut myself up again in my room.

I slept ill that night, and very early next morning I was astir. I went
down into the garden somewhere about the hour of sunrise, through the
wet grass that was all scintillant with dew. On the marble bench by the
pond, where the water-lilies were now rotting, I flung myself down, and
there was I found a half-hour later by Giuliana herself.

She stole up gently behind me, and all absorbed and moody as I was, I
had no knowledge of her presence until her crisp boyish voice startled
me out of my musings.

"Of what do we brood here so early, sir saint?" quoth she.

I turned to meet her laughing eyes. "You... you can forgive me?" I
faltered foolishly.

She pouted tenderly. "Should I not forgive one who has acted foolishly
out of love for me?"

"It was, it was..." I cried; and there stopped, all confused, feeling
myself growing red under her lazy glance.

"I know it was," she answered. She set her elbows on the seat's tall
back until I could feel her sweet breath upon my brow. "And should I
bear you a resentment, then? My poor Agostino, have I no heart to feel?
Am I but a cold, reasoning intelligence like that thing my husband?
O God! To have been mated to that withered pedant! To have been
sacrificed, to have been sold into such bondage! Me mi