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A grim courtship truly between a dead man and his own widow! Ferrari never suspected what was going on; he had spoken of me as "that poor fool Fabio, he was too easily duped;" yet never was there one more "easily duped" than himself, or to whom the epithet "poor fool" more thoroughly applied. As I said before, he was SURE too sure of his own good fortune.
But at that moment, from the direction of the pavilion, strong sounds were wafted to them and both Fabio and Valeria recognised the melody which Muzio had played to them, calling it the Song of Love Triumphant. Fabio cast a glance of surprise at Valeria.... She closed her eyes, and turned away and both, holding their breath, listened to the song to the end.
Muzzio vanished for them as though he had never existed. Fabio and Valeria were agreed, as it seemed, not to utter a syllable referring to him, not to learn anything of his later days; his fate remained, however, a mystery for all. Muzzio did actually disappear, as though he had sunk into the earth.
Alfonso was meanwhile saying to him, "I come to you, my father, full of sadness, and will not go to Ferrara to-day, but remain your guest; give orders for all my attendants to proceed to the city, and let none remain with me but Fabio."
The next day more help in the form of money and artillery arrived, sent by Pandolfo Petrucci, and on the 18th of June the citadel of Arezzo, which had received no news from Florence, was obliged to surrender. Vitellozzo left the men of Arezzo to look after their town themselves, leaving also Fabio Orsina to garrison the citadel with a thousand men.
Gradually her hands loosened their hold, her head sank back, and murmuring with a blissful smile, 'Thank God, it is all over.... But how weary I am! she fell into a sound but not heavy sleep. Fabio sank down beside her bed, and never taking his eyes off her pale and sunken, but already calmer, face, began reflecting on what had happened ... and also on how he ought to act now.
They noticed a change to blankness and stillness in his face, and when he spoke, an indescribable alteration in the tone of his voice. "I found you in a room in the corridor," said D'Arbino. "What made you faint? Don't you remember? Was it the heat?" Fabio waited for a moment, painfully collecting his ideas. He looked at the valet, and Finello signed to the man to withdraw.
This announcement excited special interest among the young ladies of Pisa. Fabio had only reached his thirtieth year; and it was universally agreed that his return to society in his native city could indicate nothing more certainly than his desire to find a second mother for his infant child.
The latest of these was the Orsini family, with which an alliance was established by the marriage celebrated at the Vatican on September 28 of that same year between Fabio Orsini and Girolama Borgia, a niece of the Pope's.
She was under some concern at first to find she was still mistaken; but his Behaviour, and the Reasons he gave, soon reconciled him to her; his Person was altogether as agreeable, his Estate and Quality not at all inferiour to Aurelian's; in the mean time, the true Aurelian who had seen his Father, begg'd leave of him to withdraw for a moment; in which time he went into the Chamber where his Incognita was dressing her self, by his design, in Woman's Apparel, while he was consulting with her how they should break the matter to his Father; it happened that Don Mario came up Stairs where the Marquess and Don Fabio were; they undoubtedly concluded him Mad, to hear him making Apologies and Excuses for Aurelian, whom he told them if they would promise to forgive he would present before them immediately.
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