it, I shall be damned eternally. Have mercy, noble lord, since now you
know how I am placed."

The smile broadened on Gian Maria's face, and the cruelty of his mouth
and eyes seemed intensified by it. The fool had told him that which he
would have given much to learn. He had told him that this man whose name
he sought, had so feared that his presence that day at Acquasparta should
become known, that he had bound the fool by oath not to divulge the
secret of it. Of what he had before suspected he was now assured. The
man in question was one of the conspirators; probably the very chief of
them. Nothing short of the fool's death under torture would now restrain
him from learning the name of that unknown who had done him the double
injury of conspiring against him, and--if the fool were to be believed--
of capturing the heart of Valentina.

"For the damnation of your soul I shall not be called to answer," he said
at last. "Care enough have I to save my own--for temptations are many
and this poor flesh is weak. But it is this man's name I need, and--by
the five wounds of Lucia of Viterbo!--I will have it. Will you speak?"

Something like a sob shook the poor fool's deformed frame. But that was
all. With bowed head he preserved a stubborn silence. The Duke made a
sign to the men, and instantly the two of them threw their weight upon
the rope, hoisting Peppe by his wrists until he was at the height of the
canopy itself. That done, they paused, and turned their eyes upon the
Duke for further orders. Again Gian Maria called upon the fool to answer
his questions; but Peppe, a writhing, misshapen mass from which two
wriggling legs depended, maintained a stubborn silence.

"Let him go," snarled Gian Maria, out of patience. The men released the