able to serve God in the world. I think you are showing me the way, Ser
Galeotto."

CHAPTER III. PIER LUIGI FARNESE

We left Milan that same day, and there followed for some months a season
of wandering through Lombardy, going from castle to castle, from tyranny
to tyranny, just the three of us--Galeotto and myself with Falcone for
our equerry and attendant.

Surely something of the fanatic's temperament there must have been
in me; for now that I had embraced a cause, I served it with all the
fanaticism with which on Monte Orsaro I sought to be worthy of the
course I had taken then.

I was become as an apostle, preaching a crusade or holy war against the
Devil's lieutenant on earth, Messer Pier Luigi Farnese, sometime Duke
of Castro, now Duke of Parma and Piacenza--for the investiture duly
followed in the August of that year, and soon his iron hand began to
be felt throughout the State of which the Pope had constituted him a
prince.

And to the zest that was begotten of pure righteousness, Galeotto
cunningly added yet another and more worldly spur. We were riding one
day in late September of that year from Cortemaggiore, where we had
spent a month in seeking to stir the Pallavicini to some spirit of
resistance, and we were making our way towards Romagnese, the stronghold
of that great Lombard family of dal Verme.

As we were ambling by a forest path, Galeotto abruptly turned to me,
Falcone at the time being some little way in advance of us, and startled
me by his words.

"Cavalcanti's daughter seemed to move you strangely, Agostino," he said,
and watched me turn pale under his keen glance.

In my confusion--more or less at random--"What should Cavalcanti's
daughter be to me?" I asked.

"Why, what you will, I think," he answered, taking my question
literally. "Cavalcanti would consider the Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina
a suitable mate for his daughter, however he might hesitate to marry her
to the landless Agostino d'Anguissola. He loved your father better than
any man that ever lived, and such an alliance was mutually desired."

"Do you think I need this added spur?" quoth I.

"Nay, I know that you do not. But it is well to know what reward
may wait upon our labour. It makes that labour lighter and increases
courage."

I hung my head, without answering him, and we rode silently amain.

He had touched me where the flesh was raw and tender. Bianca de'
Cavalcanti! It was a name I uttered like a pra