"At last!" said Visconti, in her ear, "at last thy calm fails thee!"
And then he stood aside watching, while she implored in turn Valentine and Agnolo to save her, in incoherent words of anguish.
"I cannot bear it!" she cried. "I have borne it too long! O God, have pity on me! Have pity on me, I have not the courage to face it again. I have not the courage!"
Visconti turned to her in a savage triumph of hate he scarcely troubled to conceal.
"Find thy courage again, where thou found'st it before," he said. "Thy husband is not dead, although he leaves thee to pine in prison. He may remember thee even yet."
Isotta sprang up at the taunt, wild-eyed.
"Keep thy face away from me!" she shrieked. "Ye have slain him! Kill me too!"
Then, seeing resistance useless, and those who would have saved her helpless, Della Scala's unhappy wife surrendered quietly; only, as she crossed the courtyard with her guard, and saw the tree-tops wave above the walls and the sky that was outside Milan, a cry rose that made the hardened soldiers wince.
"Mastino! Oh, Mastino!"
Visconti watched her out of sight, then turned again to Graziosa, his hand still on his sister's shoulder.