Swiftly and desperately he ran across the lawns and groves, up the winding steps to the terraces before the palace, beating the twilight with his outstretched hands as if it was an obstacle in his way.
Stumbling and breathless, he gained the painted corridors that were lit with a hasty blaze of wax light. Women were running to and fro, and he saw a priest carrying the Holy Eucharist cross a distant door.
One of these women he stopped.
“The Duchess—” he began, panting.
She laid her finger on her lip.
“They carried her in from the garden an hour ago; they bled and plastered her, but she died–before she could swallow the wafer–(hush! she was not thinking of holy things, Orsini!)–ten minutes ago—”
THE CAMP OUTSIDE NAMUR
Don Juan of Austria