d in France. Moreover, his heart is full
with wrong, and the man whose quarrel is just is always to be feared."

"A pest on you!" snarled Cattrina. "Have you the evil eye that you then
croak disaster in my ears? Look you, priest, I must come through this
game unharmed. Death is a companion I do not seek just yet, who have too
much to live for--power and wealth and high renown, if my plans succeed;
and as you should know, they are well laid. Moreover, there is that
English girl, Red Eve, my wife, from whose sweet side you made me flee.
I tell you, Nicholas, I burn for her and had rather taste her hate
than the love of any other woman on the earth. Now, too, the Pope has
summoned me to Avignon, and her also, to lay our causes before him.
Being bold, mayhap she will come, for his Holiness has sent her
safe-conduct under his own hand. Nor has he mentioned--for I saw a copy
of the brief--that the same business will take me to Avignon about this
time. Well, if she comes she will not go away again alone; the French
roads are too rough for ladies to travel unescorted. And if she does
not come, at least our marriage will be declared valid and I'll take her
when and where I can, and her wealth with her, which will be useful."

"Only then, lord, you must not die, nor even be wounded, to-morrow. It
is the Englishman who should die, for whatever the Pope may decree I
think that while de Cressi lives the slumbrous eyes of that Eve of yours
will find a way to charm you to a sleep that has no wakening. She is
not a fair-haired toy that weeps, forgets and at last grows happy in her
babe. She's a woman to make men or break them. Oh, when her sense came
back to her, for a flash she looked me cold yonder in that English
chapel, and it seemed to me that God's curse was in her stare."

"You've caught the terror, Nicholas, like so many just now in Venice.
Why, to-day I've not met a man or woman who is not afraid of something,
they know not what--save the Englishman and his death's-head. I think
'tis the unwholesome air of this strange season, and all the signs and
omens we hear of on every side that conjure vapours to the brain."

"Yes, I've the terror," said Nicholas with something like a groan.
"Every sin I ever did--and most of them have been for you, lord--seems
to haunt my sleep. Yes, and to walk with me when I wake, preaching woe
at me with fiery tongues that repentance or absolution cannot quench or
still."

"Yet, Nicholas, I think