"The Duke shouted to her women that she had swooned, and they came and
lifted her to the bed.... She suffered horribly all night, Nencia said,
twisting herself like a heretic at the stake, but without a word escaping
her. The Duke watched by her, and toward daylight sent for the chaplain;
but by this she was unconscious and, her teeth being locked, our Lord's
body could not be passed through them.

* * * * *

"The Duke announced to his relations that his lady had died after partaking
too freely of spiced wine and an omelet of carp's roe, at a supper she had
prepared in honor of his return; and the next year he brought home a new
Duchess, who gave him a son and five daughters...."


V

The sky had turned to a steel gray, against which the villa stood out
sallow and inscrutable. A wind strayed through the gardens, loosening here
and there a yellow leaf from the sycamores; and the hills across the valley
were purple as thunder-clouds.

* * * * *

"And the statue--?" I asked.

"Ah, the statue. Well, sir, this is what my grandmother told me, here on
this very bench where we're sitting. The poor child, who worshipped the
Duchess as a girl of her years will worship a beautiful kind mistress,
spent a night of horror, you may fancy, shut out from her lady's room,