en unable to
find his heart, wherefore, as those others entered now, he slashed his
victim across the throat, and so made an end.

He rose, covered with blood, so ghastly and terrific that Pico, thinking
him wounded, ran to him. But Giovanni reassured him with a laugh, and
pointed with his dripping dagger.

"The blood is his--foul Borgia blood!"

At the name Pico started, and there was a movement as of fear from the
three grooms who followed him. The Count looked down at that splendid,
blood-spattered figure lying there so still, its sightless eyes
staring up at the frescoed ceiling, so brave and so pitiful in his
gold-broidered suit of white satin, with the richly jewelled girdle
carrying gloves and purse and a jewelled dagger that had been so useless
in that extremity.

"Gandia" he cried; and looked at Giovanni with round eyes of fear and
amazement. "How came he here?"

"How?"

With bloody hand Giovanni pointed to the open door of Antonia's chamber.

"That was the lure, my lord. Taking the air outside, I saw him slinking
hither, and took him for a thief, as, indeed, he was--a thief of honour,
like all his kind. I followed, and--there he lies."

"My God!" cried Pico. And then hoarsely asked, "And Antonia?"

Giovanni dismissed the question abruptly.

"She saw, yet she knows nothing."

And then on another note:

"Up now, Pico!" he cried. "Arouse the city, and let all men know how
Gandia died the death of a thief. Let all men know this Borgia brood for
what it is."

"Are you mad?" cried Pico. "Will I put my neck under the knife?"

"You took him here in the night, and yours was the right to kill. You
exercised it."

Pico looked long and searchingly into the other's face. True, all the
appearances bore out the tale, as did, too, what had gone before and
had been the cause of Antonia's complaint to him. Yet, knowing what lay
between Sforza and Borgia, it may have seemed to Pico too extraordinary
a coincidence that Giovanni should have been so ready at hand to defend
the honour of the House of Mirandola. But he asked no questions. He was
content in his philosophy to accept the event and be thankful for it on
every count. But as for Giovanni's suggestion that he should proclaim
through Rome how he had exercised his right to slay this Tarquin, the
Lord of Mirandola had no mind to adopt it.

"What is done is done," he said shortly, in a tone that conveyed much.
"Let it suffice us all. It but remains now to b