Do you
not see how I suffer? Do you not see how fiercely love of you is torturing
me--how I burn--that you can so cruelly deny me?"
It was Farnese's voice. Cosimo, that dastard, had indeed carried out the
horrible compact of which Giuliana had warned me, carried it out in a more
horrible and inhuman manner than even she had suggested or suspected.
Cavalcanti would have hurled himself against the door but that I set a hand
upon his arm to restrain him, and a finger of my other hand--the one that
held the dagger--to my lips.
Softly I tried the latch. I was amazed to find the door yield. And yet,
where was the need to lock it? What interruption could he have feared in a
house that evidently had been delivered over to him by the bridegroom, a
house that was in the hands of his own people?
Very quietly I thrust the door open, and we stood there upon the
threshold--Cavalcanti and I--father and lover of that sweet maid who was
the prey of this foul Duke. We stood whilst a man might count a dozen,
silent witnesses of that loathsome scene.
The bridal chamber was all hung in golden arras, save the great carved bed
which was draped in dead-white velvet and ivory damask--symbolizing the
purity of the sweet victim to be offered up upon that sacrificial altar.
And to that dread sacrifice she had come--for my sake, as I was to learn--
with the fearful willingness of Iphigenia.
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