He made a dignified exit. An attack of vertigo to which he was liable came on when he was on horseback. He was thrown and dragged, and only survived a few days as by a miracle. His wife, who had seen little of him during the last year, saw still less of him during the days of his short illness. But when the end was close at hand he sent for her, and asked her to remain in a distant recess of his room during the painful hours.
"It will be a happier memory for you," he said gently to her between the paroxysms of suffering, "to think that you were there."
And so propped high in a great carved bedstead in the octagonal room where the Colle Altos were born, and where, when they could choose, they died, the duke lay awaiting the end.
He had received extreme unction. The chanting choir had gone. The priest had closed his pale fingers upon the crucifix, when he desired to be left alone with his wife.
She drew near timidly and stood beside his bed.
He bent his tranquil, kindly eyes upon her.
"Good-bye, my Francesca," he said. "May God and his angels protect you, and give you peace."
A belated compunction seized her.