Valentine held out her hand. "Give me the paper; I will give it to my brother!"
The captain hesitated.
"Since thou hast not the courage," she added almost with a laugh. All Gian's orders had not availed to prevent some whisper reaching Valentine of his evil humor and the cause of it: Conrad's escape, the threatening parchments; the hint that Della Scala lived. Alberic, glancing at her, saw a triumph and a malice in the lady's glance that made him doubly feel he did not care just then to wait Visconti's coming. But still he hesitated; the Duke might vent on him his fury with his sister.
"This business will not wait," cried Valentine, "give me the parchment to deliver, or knock at yonder door and hand it to the Duke yourself."
But the captain of the mercenaries bent low, shook his head with a significant gesture, and, handing over the fatal missive, bowed himself away. Valentine turned again to Tisio's page.
"Take thy lord away," she said. "The Duke may not be best pleased to see him here."
But Tisio would not go. Valentine, bending over him, stroked his hands tenderly, then breaking from him, leaned against the wall in sudden woe.
"All of us crazed," she cried bitterly. "All of us, surely; wretched people that we are!"
Then, at the sight of the parchment she held, her former mood returned. Conrad was alive! He had vowed devotion. He would return to her rescue. She would live to be free; to come and go outside the Visconti palace, outside Milan, out yonder in the world. She leaned back against the arras a moment, dizzy at the thought of so much joy, and her courage rose high, her eyes danced.
"The Duke must have this parchment," she said; "and since Alberic da Salluzzo does not care to seek an audience for it, why, Tisio, thou shalt see me give it. The Duke loves not an interruption when he is angry," she added, with a soft laugh. "But 'tis my duty to show him this."