hom
I had raised my eyes, snatched away from me by my cousin who already
usurped so much that was my own.

"O, you must be mistaken," I cried.

"Mistaken?" he echoed. He shook his head, smiling bitterly. "There is no
possibility of mistake. I am just come from an interview with the Duke
and his fine captain. Together they sought me out to ask my daughter's
hand for Cosimo d'Anguissola."

"And you?" I cried, for this thrust aside my every doubt.

"And I declined the honour," he answered sternly, rising in his
agitation. "I declined it in such terms as to leave them no doubt upon
the irrevocable quality of my determination; and then this pestilential
Duke had the effrontery to employ smiling menaces, to remind me that he
had the power to compel folk to bend the knee to his will, to remind
me that behind him he had the might of the Pontiff and even of the Holy
Office. And when I defied him with the answer that I was a feudatory of
the Emperor, he suggested that the Emperor himself must bow before the
Court of the Inquisition."

"My God!" I cried in liveliest fear.

"An idle threat!" he answered contemptuously, and set himself to stride
the room, his hands clasped behind his broad back.

"What have I to do with the Holy Office?" he snorted. "But they had
worse indignities for me, Agostino. They mocked me with a reminder that
Giovanni d'Anguissola had been my firmest friend. They told me they knew
it to have been my intention that my daughter should become the Lady of
Mondolfo, and to cement the friendship by making one State of Pagliano,
Mondolfo and Carmina. And they added that by wedding her to Cosimo
d'Anguissola was the way to execute that plan, for Cosimo, Lord of
Mondolfo already, should receive Carmina as a wedding-gift from the
Duke."

"Was such indeed your intention?" I asked scarce above a whisper,
overawed as men are when they perceive precisely what their folly and
wickedness have cost them.

He halted before me, and set one hand of his upon my shoulder, looking
up into my face. "It has been my fondest dream, Agostino," he said.

I groaned. "It is a dream that never can be realized now," said I
miserably.

"Never, indeed, if Cosimo d'Anguissola continues to be Lord of
Mondolfo," he answered, his keen, friendly eyes considering me.

I reddened and paled under his glance.

"Nor otherwise," said I. "For Monna Bianca holds me in the contempt
which I deserve. Better a thousand times that I should hav