That word stopped his mouth, for he was about to curse her as a minister of Satan, but a touch of pity softened his anger and contempt.
"You know not what you ask," he said. "She would despise me, and I would abhor myself. Let me die without forfeiting her respect."
"She!" the dwarf sneered, and was suddenly silent. Her keen insight told her that if she betrayed to this strangely constituted man that the scheme had originated with her mistress he would loathe where he now pitied and every chance of success be lost.
"What were you about to say?" he asked.
"Only that you little know the love you slight. She would forgive you anything but desertion. Yours is a strange code of honour, that can win the affection of a noble lady and then throw it lightly away. I am going now. Once for all I ask, will you accept my offer?"
"And tempt that innocent soul to a life of perfidy and shame?—God send me death quickly and spare me such villainy as that."
"Your prayer will not be answered," she sneered. "Death will come, but not quickly,—unless you beat your brains out against the bars of your cage, and before that you will shriek and call for me, but I will not come. You have known how the women of the Medici love. Learn now how they hate."
Her footsteps died away and despair settled upon his heart. How long, how long, he asked himself, must he endure this agony before death would come to his release.
The dwarf had left food and water on the window-sill in plain sight but beyond his reach. He closed his eyes but the odour of the viands reached him and increased his faintness. The hours lagged on, and toward evening a light breeze sprang up and he fell into a troubled sleep which somewhat dulled his suffering. From this he was rudely awakened by the swaying and jolting of his cage, and he realised that it was being hauled hastily and not too gently into the tower.
Men dragged him from it, a physician gave him a reviving draught and assisted him down the staircase at whose foot he fell into the arms of the faithful Malespini.