She was in her twenty-first year, but in reality she seemed to me no older than she had been on that day when first I saw her arguing with her grooms upon the road to Cagli.

And from this I reassured myself that she had not been fretted overmuch by the absence of the Lord Giovanni.
Presently she spoke of him and of her plighted word which her brother and those supple gentlemen of the House of Borgia were inducing her to dishonour.
"Once before, in a case almost identical, when all seemed lost, you came--as if Heaven directed--to my rescue.

This it is that gives me confidence in such aid as you might lend me now." "Alas! Madonna," I sighed, "but the times are sorely changed and the situations with them.

What is there now that I can do ?" "What you did then.

Take me beyond their reach." "Ah! But whither ?" "Whither but to the Lord Giovanni?
Is it not to him that my troth is plighted ?" I shook my head in sorrow, a thrust of jealousy cutting me the while.
"That may not be," said I."It were not seemly, unless the Lord Giovanni were here himself to take you hence." "Then I will write to the Lord Giovanni," she cried.