"Wrapped round an arbalest-bolt that fell on the ramparts yesterday
whilst I was walking there alone," returned Gonzaga coolly.
He had by now regained his composure. He saw that stood in deadly peril,
and the very fear that possessed him seemed, by an odd paradox, to lend
him the strength to play his part.
Valentina eyed him with a something of mistrust in her glance. But on
Francesco's clear countenance no shadow of suspicion showed. His eyes
almost smiled as he asked Gonzaga:
"Why did you not bear it to Monna Valentina?"
A flush reddened the courtier's cheeks. He shrugged his shoulders
impatiently, and in a voice that choked with anger he delivered his
reply.
"To you, sir, who seem bred in camps and reared in guard-rooms, the
fulness of this insult offered me by Gian Maria may not be apparent. It
may not be yours to perceive that the very contact of that letter soiled
my hands, that it shamed me unutterably to think that that loutish Duke
should have deemed me a target for such a shaft. It were idle,
therefore, to seek to make you understand how little I could bear to
submit to the further shame of allowing another to see the affront that I
was powerless to avenge. I did, sir, with that letter the only thing
conceivable. I crumpled it in my hand and cast it from me, just as I
sought to cast its contents from my mind. But your watchful spies, Ser
Francesco, bore it to you, and if my shame has been paraded before the
eyes of that rabble soldiery, at least it has served the purpose of
saving Monna Valentina.
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