She put her hand on the door handle.
"When would he have sent for me?" she wondered dully. "He smiled. His voice was gentle; Ambrogio's voice! and he is Ambrogio, and—to-night, to-night——"
Her eyes fell on the long blue hooded cloak hanging on the wall near. She took it down and paused with it in her hand, looking at it with fixed eyes.
A bird flew past the window, sending a swift shadow across the floor.
Graziosa opened the door slowly and stepped out onto the stair. It was almost dark there; silently she closed the door behind her and wrapped the cloak about her, drawing the hood over her head and face.
Leaning over the stair rail, she saw that the door of the room below was open, her father's voice was silent: the soldiers had gone elsewhere. Softly she crept down into that pleasant chamber where Visconti had sat so often; the sunlight came in from the open door in a great band across the dark floor, falling on her white face as she moved through it and out into the yard. She saw there was no soldier by the door into the street. She opened it, she could see her father and the guard chatting over wine-cups by the sundial in the garden, they were not looking; she crossed like the shadow of the bird upon the floor. Her pet doves flew away at her guilty steps as if they did not know her, and Graziosa knew herself indeed changed from the one who had last fed them.
The bolt of the door would at first not move for her trembling fingers, but she did not stay here; in a second more she stood in the street, a closed door behind her. Graziosa would never see it open more.
The houses stood clear against a brilliant sapphire sky, and above them moved a silver banner, the banner of the Viper. It floated from the Visconti palace, and Graziosa, with no glance back, bent her steps in its direction.