Naught more had been needed to undo me than this spur of jealousy.

It brought me now to her side.

I stood over her, looking down at her between tenderness and fierceness, she returning my glance with such a look as may haunt the eyes of sacrificial victims.
"Why dared he come ?" I asked.
"Perhaps...

perhaps some affair connected with Astorre..." she faltered.
I sneered.

"That would be natural seeing that he has sent Astorre to Parma." "If there was aught else, I am no party to it," she assured me.
How could I do other than believe her?
How could I gauge the turpitude of that beauty's mind--I, all unversed in the wiles that Satan teaches women?
How could I have guessed that when she saw Fifanti speak to that lad at the gate that afternoon she had feared that he had set a spy upon the house, and that fearing this she had bidden the Cardinal begone?
I knew it later.