With marked submission did he give me thanks in his master's name.

I mounted and set out, and at my heels came now the litter and its escort.
Thus did we quit the plain and breast the slopes, where the snow grew
deeper and firmer underfoot as we advanced. And as I went, still plaguing
my mind to devise a means by which I might penetrate to the Court of
Pesaro, little did I dream that the matter was being solved for me--the
solution having begun with my offer to guide that company across the
hills.




CHAPTER III

MADONNA PAOLA


We gained the heights in the forenoon, and there we dismounted and paused
awhile to breathe our horses ere we took the path that was to lead us down
to Cagli. The air was sharp and cold, for all that overhead was spread a
cloudless, cobalt dome of sky, and the sun poured down its light upon the
wide expanse of snow-clad earth, of a whiteness so dazzling as to be
hurtful to the sight.

Hitherto I had ridden stolidly ahead, as unheeding of that following
company as if I had been unconscious of its existence. But now that we
paused, their fat, white-faced leader, whose name was Giacopo, approached
me and sought to draw me into conversation. I yielded readily enough, for
I scented a mystery about that closely-curtained litter, and mysteries are