influences led you to a course which, hitherto, you have so obstinately
refused to follow?"

The Duke shrugged his shoulders.

"They plagued me so," he lamented, with a grimace, "that in the end I
consented. I could withstand Lodi and the others, but when my mother
joined them with her prayers--I should say, her commands--and pointed out
again my peril to me, I gave way. After all a man must wed. And since
in my station he need not let his marriage weigh too much upon him, I
resolved on it for the sake of security and peace."

Since it was the salvation of Babbiano that he aimed at, the Count of
Aquila should have rejoiced at Gian Maria's wise resolve, and no other
consideration should have tempered so encompassing a thing as that joy of
his should have been. Yet, when later he left his cousin's presence, the
only feeling that he carried with him was a deep and bitter resentment
against the Fate that willed such things, blent with a sorrowing pity for
the girl that was to wed his cousin and a growing hatred for the cousin
who made him pity her.




CHAPTER VI

THE AMOROUS DUKE


From a window of the Palace of Babbiano the Lord of Aquila watched the