elf again within its
domain.

Tranquil, lily-starred lakes, blue as the heavens they mirror, lapped
with caressing ripples the foundations of the immense Gonzaga palace and
gave it the same enchanting environment on the morning of his arrival as
to-day. Its rosy walls glowed in the morning light like a cluster of
pink lotus-blossoms, while, a little apart from the main group of
buildings, a slender tower shot into the air, and suspended from its
summit, like some bell-shaped flower which droops its head, an iron
cage was sharply etched against the glowing sky.

"Is that a beacon?" asked Brandilancia. "If so, though unlighted, I
accept it as a good omen, as it were a signal hung out for my welcome."

"Heaven forfend that it should have aught to do with you, my lord, or
you with it," replied Malespini. "The flame of many a poor fellow's life
has gone out in that sinister cresset; but think not of it, for my lady
awaits you within the palace. You are to learn how the Medici love, not
how they hate."

Through interminable apartments regal with paintings and statues,
collected earlier in the century by Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, the
secretary led Brandilancia to the small writing-room of the Marchesa.

Marie de' Medici was standing alone at the window gazing at the
darkening lake. She turned as he entered, and her cry, "At last you have
returned, at last, O my beloved!" broken by sobs and wild caresses, made
good Malespini's promise.

She believed that the King of France, instead of sending the promised
proxy, had himself returned to betroth her at the approaching festival,
when he would doubtless declare himself publicly. Since it pleased him,
to make further proof of her affection, she accepted his confession that
he was only a poor comedian with apparent faith and with protestations
of unshaken love. She told him of the despair with which she faced her
brilliant future, of the loathing which overcame her at the thought of
any husband but himself; and she begged him to rescue her from so
hideous a fate.

How could he brutally tell so adorable a creature that the burning
words, which he had spoken on the night before his flight from the Villa
Medici, were but a poetic rhapsody, inspired by a frenzy which had
passed with the glamour that evoked it? He strove instead to recall her
to a sense of her own position, and he urged every consideration of
honour and of interest, apparently with some success; for she became
cal