in that famous statue and also the lady at his
side.

The Grand Duchess sniffed, she was silenced but not deceived, and she
remained at her niece's side through the remainder of the afternoon.

As several guests joined them and discussed with great connoisseurship
the merits of the sculpture Brandilancia's thoughts wandered to his
host. "What manner of man was this Ferdinando de' Medici who had
converted his garden pleasance into a museum?"

Mentally reviewing what he had heard of the Grand Duke it seemed that
all that was most admirable in the race must focus in its present
representative. But Marie de' Medici had let fall a disquieting remark
which pointed to another side to his character. "See, your grace," she
had said to Brandilancia, "here is a favourite play of mine, _Il Moro di
Venezia_, a sad tragedy but it stirs one's blood to read it. Perhaps it
stirs mine because it is not long since tragedies like that have been
enacted in my own family. Love and jealousy and revenge are a part of
our heritage, and at times I long to come into my birthright, for such
existence as I now lead is not life."

This half-revelation so impressed Brandilancia that he could not expel
it from his mind, and when next alone with the secretary, Malespini, he
begged for an explanation.

"Tell me something," he begged, "of the character of the Grand Duke. I
do not ask you to divulge private matters, but only such as are public
property and with which I would be acquainted were I not so newly
arrived in Italy."

Malespini gave him a compassionate glance. "I thought that all the world
knew that my master was a child of Satan," he replied coolly. "The
Signorina told you truly. He caused the death of his two sisters-in-law,
and was responsible for the murder of his own sister, goading her
husband the Duke of Bracciano to the act. It is commonly reported also
that the Signorina's father, the former Grand Duke of Tuscany, together
with his wife, Bianca Capello, were poisoned by Ferdinando, though he
made the act appear to be that of the murdered Duchess."

"And what," asked the horrified Brandilancia, "was the motive of this
crime?"

"Is it not apparent? Ferdinando de Medici, then a cardinal, had just
failed in his candidacy for the pontificate (outwitted by that fox
Montalto). If he could not be pope it suited him as well to be Grand
Duke of Tuscany."

"If this is true is the Signorina safe in his power?"

"So long as their intere