“Bid these men begone,” he said, pointing to his guards. “Then hear me scatter your foul suspicions as the hurricane scatters the leaves in autumn.”
Gian Maria stared at him in stupefaction. That overwhelming assurance, that lofty, dignified bearing which made such a noble contrast with his own coarse hectoring, were gradually undermining more and more his confidence. With a wave of his hand he motioned the soldiers to withdraw, obeying almost unconsciously the master-mind of his cousin by which he was as unconsciously being swayed.
“Now, Highness,” said Francesco, as soon as the men were gone, “before I refute the charge you make, let me clearly understand it. From the expressions you have used I gather it to be this: A conspiracy was laid a little time ago at Sant' Angelo which had for object to supplant you on the throne of Babbiano and set me in your place. You charge me with having had in that conspiracy a part—the part assigned to me. It is so, is it not?”
Gian Maria nodded.
“You have put it very clearly,” he sneered. “If you can make out your innocence as clearly, I shall be satisfied that I have wronged you.”
“That this conspiracy took place we will accept as proven, although to the people of Babbiano the proof may have seemed scant. A man, since dead, had told your Highness that such a plot was being hatched. Hardly, perhaps, in itself, evidence enough to warrant setting the heads of four very valiant gentlemen on spears, but no doubt your Highness had other proofs to which the rest of us had no access.”
Gian Maria shivered at the words. He recalled what Francesco had said on the occasion of their last talk upon this very subject; he remembered the manner of his own reception that day in Babbiano.
“We must be content that it is so,” calmly pursued Francesco. “Indeed, your Highness's action in the matter leaves no doubt. We will accept, then, that such a plot was laid, but that I had a part in it, that I was the man chosen to take your place—need I prove the idleness of such a charge?”
“You need, in truth. By God! you need, if you would save your head.”
The Count stood in an easy posture, his hands clasped behind his back, and smiled up at his cousin's pale face and scowling brow.