Then, after a pause,--"You remember, once, promising me
that at the last I should come and place my neck under your
foot . . ." She glanced up at me and dropped her eyes again. "Yes,
I see that you remember. _Eccu_--I am here."
"I remember, Princess: but even yet I do not understand. Why, and
for what, should you beseech me?"
"In the first place for death. I am your wife . . ." She broke off
with a shiver. "There is something in the name, _messere_--is there
not?--that should move you to kindness, as a sportsman takes his game
not unkindly to break its neck. That is all I ask of you--"
"Princess!"
She lifted a hand. "--except that you will let me say what I have to
say. You shall think hard thoughts of me, and I am going to make
them harder; but for your own sake you shall put away vile ones-if
you can."
I stared at her stupidly dizzied a little with the words _I am your
wife_, humming in my brain. Or say that I am naturally not
quick-witted, and I will plead that for once my dullness did me no
discredit.
At all events it saved me for the moment: for while I stared at her,
utterly at a loss, a crackle of twigs warned us, and we turned
together as, by the pathway leading from the high-road, the bushes
parted and the face of Marc'antonio peered through upon the clearing.
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