CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE THE DUKE'S RETURN
Having succeeded so far, Valentine had little fear; it was now an almost easy matter for her to accomplish the remainder of her plan.
She had the palace keys in her possession, and they unlocked secret doors, and more than one hidden entry and private way, entries and ways she knew well, and yet otherwise could not have used.
Soon after that dawn that saw Carrara fall by the wayside, Isotta d'Este and Valentine slipped from the palace; aided by Costanza, and joined by Adrian in the long gallery, they passed through the secret door that led through winding passages to the old part of the building, and thence by another entrance almost beneath the walls themselves.
Valentine wore a page's suit, her upper lip darkened, a heavy cloak, with a hood such as was worn in traveling, drawn about her, and by her side Visconti's dagger.
Despite her anxiety, her passionate desire to frustrate her brother's tyranny, her wild eagerness to be free and outside Milan, Valentine almost enjoyed the part that she was playing; she swaggered more than Adrian, and looked with some scorn on the weakness of Mastino's wife, who wept with her happiness.
The thought of Gian's rage and discomfiture was very sweet to Valentine, almost as sweet as the thought of Conrad in Della Scala's camp, and the happy life of freedom coming.
Rapidly they traversed the narrow street that led to the gate, Valentine erect and joyful, Isotta leaning on her arm, happy too, with a deeper happiness, but faint and bewildered from her long imprisonment, nervous and fearful of every sound.
Behind them strode Adrian, with eager eyes and swelling heart—the Lady Valentine had smiled on him!
But the lady's thoughts were not on the page. With every step to freedom, Count Conrad's blue eyes and merry laugh rose before her the more clearly, and she remembered that last time she had essayed escape, and he had near given her, for all he knew, his life. He was in Della Scala's camp.