"There is surely hope."
She took the note, and passing a hand over her eyes, as if to clear away
some mist that obscured her vision, she read it. Then she considered the
curt summons that gave no clue, and lastly looked at me.
"It is the end," I said. "One way or the other, it is the end. But for
Galeotto's letter, I think I should have refused to obey, and made myself
an outlaw indeed. As it is--there is surely hope!"
"0, Agostino, surely, surely!" she cried. "Have we not suffered enough?
Have we not paid enough already for the happiness that should be ours?
Tomorrow I shall go with you to Piacenza."
"No, no," I implored her.
"Could I remain here?" she pleaded. "Could I sit here and wait? Could you
be so cruel as to doom me to such a torture of suspense?"
"But if...if the worst befalls?"
"It cannot," she answered. "I believe in God."
CHAPTER XV
THE WILL OF HEAVEN
In the Chamber of Justice of the Communal Palace sat that day not the
Assessors of the Ruota, but the Councillors in their damask robes--the
Council of Ten of the City of Piacenza. And to preside over them sat not
their Prior, but Ferrante Gonzaga himself, in a gown of scarlet velvet
edged with miniver.
They sat at a long table draped in red at the room's end, Gonzaga slightly
above them on a raised dais, under a canopy.
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