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I was accounted to be very like my father, and that a member of the house of Cavalcanti, with which Giovanni d'Anguissola had been so intimate, should detect the likeness was not unnatural. I was convinced, moreover, that he had been guided thither by merest curiosity at the sight of that crowd of pilgrims.
At Perugia, Ser Cosimo, he took this scar which for thirteen years has served him for a mask." And he pointed to his own face. I came to my feet, scarce believing what I heard. Galeotto was Giovanni d'Anguissola my father! And my heart had never told me so! In a flash I saw things that hitherto had been obscure, things that should have guided me to the truth had I but heeded their indications.
"Why, what you will, I think," he answered, taking my question literally. "Cavalcanti would consider the Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina a suitable mate for his daughter, however he might hesitate to marry her to the landless Agostino d'Anguissola. He loved your father better than any man that ever lived, and such an alliance was mutually desired." "Do you think I need this added spur?" quoth I.
And presently we heard that Mondolfo had been conferred by Farnese upon his good and loyal servant and captain, the Lord Cosimo d'Anguissola, subject to a tax of a thousand ducats yearly!
He halted before me, and set one hand of his upon my shoulder, looking up into my face. "It has been my fondest dream, Agostino," he said. I groaned. "It is a dream that never can be realized now," said I miserably. "Never, indeed, if Cosimo d'Anguissola continues to be Lord of Mondolfo," he answered, his keen, friendly eyes considering me. I reddened and paled under his glance.
"Blasphemer! You show me clearly whence came the impiety and ungodliness of Giovanni d'Anguissola. It had the same source as your own. It was suckled at your mother's breast." A sob shook him. "My mother is dead, Madonna!" he rebuked her. "She is more blessed, then, than I; since she has not lived to see what a power for sin she has brought forth. Go, pitiful friar. Go, both of you.
He threatens to remain until I come to what he terms a reasonable mind until I consent to do his will and allow my daughter to marry his henchman; and he parted from me enjoining me to give the matter thought, and impudently assuring me that in Cosimo d'Anguissola in that guelphic jackal I had a husband worthy of Bianca de' Cavalcanti."
Was it likely, then, that he should sacrifice me willingly to the seclusion of the cloister, whilst our lordship passed into the hands of our renegade, guelphic cousin, Cosimo d'Anguissola of Codogno? I can picture his outbursts at the very thought of it; I can hear him reasoning, upbraiding, storming.
"That is what is generally believed, and what Giovanni d'Anguissola has left all to believe, even to his own priest-ridden wife, even to his own son, sitting there, lest had the world known the truth whilst Pier Luigi lived such a confiscation as this should, indeed, have been perpetrated. "But he did not die at Perugia.
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