"So ho, my fine lady! So ho, still scornful even after thy lover has tired of thee and left his beautiful Rose with her petals falling about her on the ground, for him who chooses to pick them up and enjoy their fragrance?" He folded his arms and looked down upon her, smiling maliciously.
"Then not for you, not for you, Pierre Barsini, shall they lie there," she answered angrily, stamping her foot; "why do you follow me about and torture me so? What have I done to you that you should so gloat over my misery? Can you not let me be since I am unhappy enough to suit even you?"
A sardonic smile shot across the Cardinal's face. "Done to me," he repeated, "what have you done to me? Oh, nothing,—nothing,—only awakened within me the fires of Hell, robbed me of my sleep and all desire for food, made my waking moments a torture, and my nights a tantalus of entrancing visions, changed me one instant into a drivelling idiot,—and the next into a cruel demon with no mercy whatever in my heart. Why seek to make me hate thee? Be mine, and I shall provide for thee a state which you, in England, know naught of. In Rome you will be a very princess. Basta! I could almost laugh to think of the Cardinal Barsini begging for a woman's favors."
The girl smiled to think that there was a time, not so very long ago, when such talk might have had weight with her.
He misinterpreted the smile. "Be not so cruel," he said, reaching forth his arms. But she sprang back with horror in her face.
"Sooner than give myself to thee," she cried vehemently, "I would cheerfully seek out the lowliest churl who slinks on his foul litter."
The haughty Legate paled with rage; for an instant he regarded in stony silence the beautiful girl who dared to defy him so insolently, then, drawing himself up to his full height, with one arm raised high above his head, as a last resort to compel her to his will, he launched forth the awful words of excommunication from the Church.
But now Annys could stand it no longer. Dashing from his hiding-place, and facing the Legate, trembling with fierce indignation, he cried:—
"'Cast out from the body of the Church, doomed to everlasting hell-fire, torture without end.' It is you, you foul fiend in holy garb, and not this woman, that should be cast out."
The Legate smiled, a cold, hard smile, fully master of himself again. "Pardon me, Sir Knight," he remarked with studied politeness, "had I known that the lady had decided already to comfort herself with another gallant, I should not have presumed to press my suit."