uke of Babbiano, I call upon you to yield, lady, laying down your arms
and throwing open your gates."

There followed a pause, at the end of which she asked him was that the
sum of his message, or was there something that he had forgotten.
The herald, bowing gracefully upon the arched neck of his caracoling
palfrey, answered her that what he had said was all he had been bidden
say.

She turned with a bewildered and rather helpless look to those behind
her. She wished that the matter might be conducted with due dignity,
and her convent rearing left her in doubt of how this might best be
achieved. She addressed herself to Francesco.

"Will you give him his answer, my Lord Provost," she said, with a
smile, and Francesco, stepping forward and leaning on a merlon of that
embattled wall, obeyed her.

"Sir Herald," he said, in a gruff voice that was unlike his own, "will
you tell me since when has the Duke of Babbiano been at war with
Urbino that he should thus beset one of its fortresses, and demand the
surrender of it?"

"His Highness," replied the herald, "is acting with the full sanction of
the Duke of Urbino in sending this message to the Lady Valentina della
Rovere."

At that Valentina elbowed the Count aside, and forgetting her purpose of
conducting this affair with dignity, she let her woman's tongue deliver
the answer of her heart.

"This message, sir, and the presence here of your master, is but another
of the impertinences that I have suffered at his hands, and it is the
crowning one. Take you that message back to him, and tell him that when
I am instructed by what right he dares to send you upon such an errand,
I may render him an answer more germane with his challenge."

"Would you prefer, Madonna, that his Highness should come himself to
speak with you?"

"There is nothing I should prefer less. Already has necessity compelled
me to have more to say to Gian Maria than I could have wished." And
with a proud gesture she signified that the audience was at an end, and
turned to quit the wall.

She had a brief conference with Francesco, during which he consulted her
as to certain measures of defence to be taken, and made suggestions,
to all of which she agreed, her hopes rising fast to see that here, at
least, she had a man with knowledge of the work to which he had set his
hand. It lightened her heart and gave her a glad confidence to look on
that straight, martial figure, the hand so familiarly resting o