a little, but his nature, schooled by the long habit of
jest, prompted a bold whimsicality in his reply.

"The circumstances are scarcely as propitious--to me. Your Highness,
though, seems in excellent good-humour."

Gian Maria looked at him angrily a moment. He was a slow-witted man, and
he could devise no ready answer, no such cutting gibe as it would have
pleasured him to administer. He walked leisurely to the fire-place, and
leant his elbow on the overmantel.

"Your humour led you into saying some things for which I should be
merciful if I had you whipped."

"And, by the same reasoning, charitable if you had me hanged," returned
the fool dryly, a pale smile on his lips.

"Ah! You acknowledge it?" cried Gian Maria, never seeing the irony
intended. "But I am a very clement prince, fool."

"Proverbially clement," the jester protested, but he did not succeed
this time in excluding the sarcasm from his voice.

Gian Maria shot him a furious glance.

"Are you mocking me, animal? Keep your venomous tongue in bounds, or
I'll have you deprived of it."

Peppe's face turned grey at the threat, as well it might--for what
should such a one as he do in the world without a tongue?

Seeing him dumb and stricken, the Duke continued:

"Now, for all that you deserve a hanging for your insolence, I am
willing that you should come by no hurt so that you answer truthfully
such questions as I have for you."

Peppino's grotesque figure was doubled in a bow.

"I await your questions, glorious lord," he answered.

"You spoke----" the Duke hesitated a moment, writhing inwardly at the
memory of the exact words in which the fool had spoken. "You spoke this
morning of one whom the Lady Valentina had met."

The fear seemed to increase on the jester's face. "Yes," he answered, in
a choking voice.

"Where did she meet this knight you spoke of, and in such wondrous words
of praise described to me?"

"In the woods at Acquasparta, where the river Metauro is no better than
a brook. Some two leagues this side of Sant' Angelo."

"Sant' Angelo!" echoed Gian Maria, starting at the very mention of the
place where the late conspiracy against him had been hatched. "And when
was this?"

"On the Wednesday before Easter, as Monna Valentina was journeying from
Santa Sofia to Urbino."

No word spake the Duke in answer. He stood still, his head bowed, and
his thoughts running again on that conspiracy. The mountain fight in
which Masuccio h