He started. Her answer was so far from what he had expected.
"But your uncle——?"
"What duty do I owe to him? Oh, I have thought of it, and until—until this morning, it seemed that a convent must be my ultimate refuge. I have spent most of my young life at Santa Sofia, and the little that I have seen of the world at my uncle's court scarce invites me to see more of it. The Mother Abbess loved me a little. She would take me back, unless——"
She broke off and looked at him, and before that look of absolute and sweet surrender his senses swam. That she was niece to the Duke of Urbino he remembered no more than that he was Count of Aquila, well-born, but of none too rich estate, and certainly no more a match for her in Guidobaldo's eyes than if he had been the simple knight-errant that he seemed.
He moved closer to her, his hands—as if obeying a bidding greater than his will, the bidding of that glance of hers, perhaps—took her by the shoulders, whilst his whole soul looked at her from his eyes. Then, with a stifled cry, he caught her to him. For a moment she lay, palpitant, within his arms, her tall, bronze head on a level with his chin, her heart beating against his heart. Stooping suddenly, he kissed her on the lips. She suffered it with an unresistance that invited. But when it was done, she gently put him from her; and he, obedient to her slightest wish, curbed the wild ardour of his mood, and set her free.
"Anima mia!" he cried rapturously. "You are mine now, betide what may. Not Gian Maria nor all the dukes in Christendom shall take you from me."
She set her hand upon his lips to silence him, and he kissed the palm, so that laughing she drew back again. And now from laughter she passed to a great solemnity, and with arm outstretched towards the ducal camp: "Win me a way through those lines," said she, "and bear me away from Urbino—far away where Guidobaldo's power and the vengeance of Gian Maria may not follow us—and you shall have won me for your own. But until then, let there be a truce to—to this, between us. Here is a man's work to be done, and if I am weak as to-night, I may weaken you, and then we should both be undone. It is upon your strength I count, Franceschino mio, my true knight."
He would have answered her. He had much to tell her—who and what he was. But she pointed to the head of the steps, where a man's figure loomed.
"Yonder comes the sentinel," she said. "Leave me now, dear Francesco. Go. It is growing late."
He bowed low before her, obedient ever, like the true knight he was, and took his leave of her, his soul on fire.
Valentina watched his retreating figure until it had vanished round the angle of the wall. Then with a profound sigh, that was as a prayer of thanksgiving for this great good that had come into her life, she leaned upon the parapet and looked out into the darkness, her cheeks flushed, her heart still beating high. She laughed softly to herself out of the pure happiness of her mood. The camp of Gian Maria became a subject for her scorn. What should his might avail whilst she had such a champion to defend her now and hereafter?
There was an irony in that siege on which her fancy fastened. By coming thus in arms against her Gian Maria sought to win her for his wife; yet all that he had accomplished was to place her in the arms of the one man whom she had learnt to love by virtue of this very siege. The mellow warmth of the night, the ambient perfume of the fields were well-sorted to her mood, and the faint breeze that breathed caressingly upon her cheek seemed to re-echo the melodies her heart was giving forth. In that hour those old grey walls of Roccaleone seemed to enclose for her a very paradise, and the snatch of an old love song stole softly from her parted lips. But like a paradise—alas!—it had its snake that crept up unheard behind her, and was presently hissing in her ear. And its voice was the voice of Romeo Gonzaga.
"It comforts me, Madonna, that there is one, at least, in Roccaleone has the heart to sing."
Startled out of her happy pensiveness by that smooth and now unutterably sinister voice, she turned to face its owner.
She saw the white gleam of his face and something of the anger that smouldered in his eye, and despite herself a thrill of alarm ran through her like a shudder. She looked beyond him to a spot where lately she had seen the sentry. There was no one there nor anywhere upon that wall. They were alone, and Messer Gonzaga looked singularly evil.
For a moment there was a tense silence, broken only by the tumbling waters of the torrent-moat and the hoarse challenge of a sentry's "Chi va là?" in Gian Maria's camp. Then she turned nervously, wondering how much he might have heard of what had passed between herself and Francesco, how much have seen.
"And yet, Gonzaga," she answered him, "I left you singing below when I came away."
"—To wanton it here in the moonlight with that damned swashbuckler, that brigand, that kennel-bred beast of a sbirro!"
"Gonzaga! You would dare!"
"Dare?" he mocked her, beside himself with passion. "Is it you who speak of daring—you, the niece of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, a lady of the noble and illustrious house of Rovere, who cast yourself into the arms of a low-born vassal such as that, a masnadiero, a bandit, a bravo? And can you yet speak of daring, and take that tone with me, when shame should strike you either dead or dumb?"
"Gonzaga," she answered him, her face as white as his own, but her voice steady and hard with anger, "leave me now—upon the instant, or I will have you flogged—flogged to the bone."
A moment he stared at her like a man dazed. Then he tossed his arms to Heaven, and letting them fall heavily to his sides, he shrugged his shoulders and laughed evilly. But of going he made no shift.
"Call your men," he answered her, in a choking voice. "Do your will on me. Flog me to the bone or to the death—let that be the reward of all that I have done, all that I have risked, all that I have sacrificed to serve you. It were of a piece with your other actions."
Her eyes sought his in the gloom, her bosom heaving wildly in her endeavours to master herself before she spoke.
"Messer Gonzaga," said she at last, "I'll not deny that you served me faithfully in the matter of my escape from Urbino——"
"Why speak of it?" he sneered. "It was a service of which you but avail yourself until another offered on whom you might bestow your favour and the supreme command of your fortress. Why speak of it?"
"To show you that the service you allude to is now paid," she riposted sternly. "By reproaching me you have taken payment, and by insulting me you have stamped out my gratitude."
"A most convenient logic yours," he mocked. "I am cast aside like an outworn garment, and the garment is accounted paid for because through much hard usage it has come to look a little threadbare."
And now it entered her mind that perhaps there was some justice in what he said. Perhaps she had used him a little hardly.
"Do you think, Gonzaga," she said, and her tone was now a shade more gentle, "that because you have served me you may affront me, and that knight who has served me, also, and——"
"In what can such service as his compare with mine? What has he done that I have not done more?"
"Why, when the men rebelled here——"
"Bah! Cite me not that. Body of God! it is his trade to lead such swine. He is one of themselves. But for the rest, what has such a man as this to lose by his share in your rebellion, compared with such a loss as mine must be?"
"Why, if things go ill, I take it he may lose his life," she answered, in a low voice. "Can you lose more?"
He made a gesture of impatience.
"If things go ill—yes. It may cost him dearly. But if they go well, and this siege is raised, he has nothing more to fear. Mine is a parlous case. However ends this siege, for me there will be no escape from the vengeance of Gian Maria and Guidobaldo. They know my share in it. They know that your action was helped by me, and that without me you could never have equipped yourself for such resistance. Whatever may betide you and this Ser Franceseo, for me there will be no escape."