“Promise clearly!”
“I swear I will obey the duchess, and take to flight when and how she wills. And what is to become of me when I am far away from you?”
“Swear you will save yourself, whatever happens!”
“What! Have you made up your mind to marry Crescenzi as soon as I am gone?”
“My God, what a creature you must think me!—But swear, or my soul will never know peace again!”
“Well, then, I swear I will escape from here the day the duchess commands me to do so, and whatever may come to pass beforehand.”
Once Clelia had extracted the oath, she grew so faint that she had to retire as soon as she had expressed her thankfulness to Fabrizio.
“Everything,” she said, “was ready for my flight to-morrow, if you had insisted on staying on here. At this moment I should have looked my last on you. That was my vow to the Madonna. Now, as soon as I am able to leave my room I will go and look at the wall below the new stone in the balustrade.”
The next day she looked so deadly white that it cut him to the heart. She said to him, from her aviary window:
“We must not deceive ourselves, dear friend; our affection is a sinful one, and I am sure some misfortune will overtake us. If nothing worse happens, your attempted flight will be discovered, and you will be utterly lost. Nevertheless we must obey the dictates of human prudence, and that commands us to make every effort. To get down the outside of the great tower you must have over two hundred feet of the strongest rope. With all my endeavours I have not been able, since I knew of the plan, to get together more than fifty feet. The governor has issued an order that every cord and rope found in the citadel is to be burned, and every night the ropes belonging to the wells—which are so weak that they often break even under the light weight they have to carry—are carefully removed. But you must pray God to pardon me, for I am betraying my father, and labouring, unnatural daughter that I am, to cause him mortal grief. Pray to God for me, and if your life is saved, make a vow to consecrate every instant of it to his glory.