“Are you afraid, Gonzaga?” she asked him.
“I am—afraid for you, Madonna,” he answered readily.
“Then let your fears have peace. For whether I stay or whether I go, one thing is certain: Gian Maria never shall set hands upon me.” She turned again to Francesco. “I see a certain wisdom in the counsel of flight you would have offered me, no less than in what I take to be your advice that I should remain. Did I but consult my humour I should stay and deliver battle when this tyrant shows himself. But prudence, too, must be consulted, and I will give the matter thought.” And now she thanked him with a generous charm for having come to her with this news and proffered his assistance, asking what motives brought him.
“Such motives as must ever impel a knight to serve a lady in distress,” said he, “and perhaps, too, the memory of the charity with which you tended my wounds that day at Acquasparta.”
For a second their glances met, quivered in the meeting, and fell apart again, an odd confusion in the breast of each, all of which Gonzaga, sunk in moody rumination, observed not. To lighten the awkward silence that was fallen, she asked him how it had transpired so soon that it was to Roccaleone she had fled.
“Do you not know?” he cried. “Has not Peppe told you?”
“I have had no speech with him. He but reached the castle, himself, late last night, and I first saw him this morning when he came to announce your presence.”
And then, before more could be said, there arose a din of shouting from without. The door was pushed suddenly open, and Peppe darted into the room.
“Your man, Ser Francesco,” he cried, his face white with excitement. “Come quickly, or they will kill him.”