e one
man whom she had learnt to love by virtue of this very siege. The mellow
warmth of the night, the ambient perfume of the fields were well-sorted
to her mood, and the faint breeze that breathed caressingly upon her
cheek seemed to re-echo the melodies her heart was giving forth. In that
hour those old grey walls of Roccaleone seemed to enclose for her a
very paradise, and the snatch of an old love song stole softly from her
parted lips. But like a paradise--alas!--it had its snake that crept up
unheard behind her, and was presently hissing in her ear. And its voice
was the voice of Romeo Gonzaga.

"It comforts me, Madonna, that there is one, at least, in Roccaleone has
the heart to sing."

Startled out of her happy pensiveness by that smooth and now unutterably
sinister voice, she turned to face its owner.

She saw the white gleam of his face and something of the anger that
smouldered in his eye, and despite herself a thrill of alarm ran through
her like a shudder. She looked beyond him to a spot where lately she
had seen the sentry. There was no one there nor anywhere upon that wall.
They were alone, and Messer Gonzaga looked singularly evil.

For a moment there was a tense silence, broken only by the tumbling
waters of the torrent-moat and the hoarse challenge of a sentry's "Chi
va la?" in Gian Maria's camp. Then she turned nervously, wondering
how much he might have heard of what had passed between herself and
Francesco, how much have seen.

"And yet, Gonzaga," she answered him, "I left you singing below when I
came away."

"--To wanton it here in the moonlight with that damned swashbuckler,
that brigand, that kennel-bred beast of a sbirro!"

"Gonzaga! You would dare!"

"Dare?" he mocked her, beside himself with passion. "Is it you who speak
of daring--you, the niece of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, a lady of the
noble and illustrious house of Rovere, who cast yourself into the arms
of a low-born vassal such as that, a masnadiero, a bandit, a bravo?
And can you yet speak of daring, and take that tone with me, when shame
should strike you either dead or dumb?"

"Gonzaga," she answered him, her face as white as his own, but her voice
steady and hard with anger, "leave me now--upon the instant, or I will
have you flogged--flogged to the bone."

A moment he stared at her like a man dazed. Then he tossed his arms
to Heaven, and letting them fall heavily to his sides, he shrugged his
shoulders and laughed ev