“As chance will have it, not my wife according to the usages of our church. But she might have been. As far as affection is worth—passion, devotion—the asking in vain no prize which hand can win, or sacrifice which heart can make; as far as to have no rival—never to have had a rival—in the heart of her husband, so far she is my wife! There are women, perhaps, worse treated, and wives—the wives of princes—worse deserving.”
“Was not this Aurelia the daughter of an oil-farmer near Ferrara?”
“She was. Then you have heard the tale? I stabbed the noble who thought her worth dishonouring, and would have borne her from me. Fortune had shared her stores more evenly between us than he imagined. To him she gave the wealth to purchase pleasure; to me the hand to win it. I was a vine-dresser then; and, but for that event, might have been one still.”
“Does Aurelia know this secret, which you would sell to us?”
“That you shall know, my good lord, after you have bought it from me.”
“Where is Aurelia now?”
“If you inherit not your kinsman’s patrimony, Gonsalvo di Vasari, till you learn that, your patience, as well as your purse, shall fare the harder.”
“What if she were in our power?”
The robber smiled contemptuously at the supposition.
“What if I should tell you that she is here—in chains and peril—and that every insolence you utter added to her danger?”