"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. Ges?! 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.
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