"You will not rouse your prisoner until my return with a physician," she continued. "She sleeps. I will return or send; till then let no one pass those doors, nor you yourself."
The page and Valentine's two women still stood on the steps in the shadow.
"Come," said Valentine suddenly. "Much as I am relieved to see my brother's hostage in such security, this is gloomy dark—come, Costanza."
The two ladies moved forward, one weeping sadly, keeping her hands to and fro her face.
"The poor lady hath unnerved her," said Valentine with a sharp word of reproof, and she crossed to d'Orleans.
"Now it seems to me," said de Lana to Giannotto, "that only one lady entered with the Princess."
"Your eyes deceived you," smiled Giannotto. "I am trained to watch; I saw two enter." De Lana was silent. The two ladies had joined the few others left by the outer door, the soldier kept his eyes upon the one who wept.
Valentine was talking gayly to d'Orleans, and led the way across the garden. "On your life I charge you to guard the prisoner," she said to the captain and the soldiers. "She means more to the Duke than his own life almost—more most certainly than any other," she added meaningly.
De Lana, watching keenly, still kept his eyes, as they crossed the garden, upon that second lady, who puzzled him, and with a soldier's indiscretion he whispered his fears to Giannotto.
"My Lady Valentine," said the secretary smiling, "my lord here thinks you entered the prison with one lady and came out with two!"