"And the lady?" said de Lana, suddenly, to Visconti. "Where is she, my lord?"
Visconti, lacing his gold gloves, paused a moment, and answered over his shoulder, lightly:
"She seems to fill thy thoughts, de Lana!"
"Only, can it be the Duchess?" said da Ribera. "I have never seen Isotta d'Este, so cannot tell. I left her where I found her—on the grass, beneath those laurels. But that it is a lady——"
He pointed as he spoke to a distant bush, round which tall lilies grew.
"It is the Duchess!" cried another.
"How should she be dead?" asked de Lana, and his glance again sought the secretary's.
"How indeed?" said Visconti, with a curious smile. "And yet there are enough ways of dying abroad. I will see for myself—so that if it indeed be Isotta d'Este she may have fitting honor——"
The group moved forward. The advance of the army was already marching past the walls of the garden, past the gate through which Mastino had ridden; the pennons from their lances showed above the yellow jasmine that covered the stonework, and the drums beat loud as Visconti and his company reached the laurel clump and stood looking down at the silent figure in the crushed and bedraggled white and purple.