Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/232

220 his arms; such a pass confounded him; he had no tools to pick this sort of lock. Oh, but the thing was impossible! Two years' longing, the husband dead—why, they might marry, even, if she would. Perhaps that was what she needed? If so, he would risk his life in the city again to find a priest. But, think of it, formalities at this hour!

Molly smiled and blushed; she was sorry for her friend and would have consoled him if she could; but the thing was so obvious. Did not Grifone see?

Grifone did not see; he tore his hair, he threatened, prayed, raved, commanded, coaxed, swore by God and the Devil, clung to her knees—useless!

"Dear friend," she said, and stroked his hot hair, "you have served me well. Never serve me now so ill."

She beat him. From that moment, when love was dead, he began to hate her. She was safe from what she feared. Everything he might have waived but that, a clean blow at his own conceit. The end was near.

Their colloquy, so frenzied on his part, so staid and generous at once on hers, was barely over before the hum of many voices crept upon them, a slow, murmurous advance, out of which, as the hordes drew near, one or two sharp cries—"Seek, seek!" "Death to the traitor!"—threw up like the hastier wave-crests in a racing tide. Again they heard (and now more clearly), "Evviva Madonna! La Madonna di Nona!" and then (more ominous than all) a cry for Cesare Borgia: "Chiesa! Chiesa!"