the
"Sun."

Upon hearing the news he swore a mighty oath in which he consigned
his cousin to the devil, by whom, in that moment, he pronounced him
begotten.

"Do you think," he asked, when he was calmer, "that this man Gonzaga is
her lover?"

"It is more than I can say," answered Fanfulla. "There is the fact that
she fled with him. Though when I questioned Peppe on this same subject
he first laughed the notion to scorn, and then grew grave. 'She loves
him not, the popinjay,' he said; 'but he loves her, or I am blind else,
and he's a villain, I know.'"

Francesco stood up, his face mighty serious, and his dark eyes full of
uneasy thought.

"By the Host! It is a shameful thing," he cried out at last. "This
poor lady so beset on every hand by a parcel of villains, each more
unscrupulous than the other. Fanfulla, send for Peppe. We must despatch
the fool to her with warning of Gian Maria's coming, and warning, too,
against this man of Mantua she has fled with."

"Too late," answered Fanfulla. "The fool departed this morning for
Roccaleone, to join his patrona."

Francesco looked his dismay.

"She will be undone," he groaned. "Thus between the upper and the nether
stone--between Gian Maria and Romeo Gonzaga. Gesu! she will be undone!
And she so brave and so high-spirited!"

He moved slowly to the casement, and stood staring at the windows across
the street, on which the setting sun fell in a ruddy glow. But it was
not the windows that he saw. It was a scene in the woods at Acquasparta
on that morning after the mountain fight; a man lying wounded in the
bracken, and over him a gentle lady bending with eyes of pity and
solicitude. Often since had his thoughts revisited that scene, sometimes
with a smile, sometimes with a sigh, and sometimes with both at once.

He turned suddenly upon Fanfulla. "I will go myself," he announced.

"You?" echoed Fanfulla. "But the Venetians?"

By a gesture the Count signified how little the Venetians weighed with
him when compared with the fortunes of this lady.

"I am going to Roccaleone," he insisted, "now--at once." And striding to
the door he beat his hands together and called Lanciotto.

"You said, Fanfulla, that in these days there are no longer maidens held
in bondage to whom a knight-errant may lend aid. You were at fault, for
in Monna Valentina we have the captive maiden, in my cousin the dragon,
in Gonzaga another, and in me the errant knight who is destined--I
hope--t