"Go ... go.... It must be done!"
And Titta went.—He ascended the staircase softly, and approached the room of the Duchess, and scarcely had he knocked, before a voice from within called:
"Who is there?"
"I come by the Duke's order, my Lady, to beg you to accept these two hounds that he sends you as a present, hoping you for his sake will hold them dear; and desires also that to-morrow you will observe in the chase if they are active and fleet;—he also prays you to come to him for a short time, wishing to see you, after so many years of absence, without witnesses."
Titta, on entering, saw the Duchess with the Lady Lucrezia Frescobaldi kneeling before an image of the Blessed Virgin, reading prayers from a Missal; and he said to himself: "Better thus, she is provided with sacrament for the great journey."
Isabella stood up, and said to Lucrezia:
"Should I, or should I not, go to sleep with my husband? What say you?"
Lady Frescobaldi, shrugging her shoulders, replied:
"Do whatever you wish; he is your husband still."[60]
"I will go then."