She twisted her damp, cold hands together; she wondered if she shut her eyes and leaped from the window she might die without knowing it, and nerving herself looked out.
But the stone courtyard seemed far away, hard and cruel, and she winced back again.
In her own heart she knew she was a coward, and wept to think it was so--wept to think she could not rise to act, in any way to act.
There was no tinge of greatness in Graziosa's soul; she would have gone through life, if unmolested, merry, gentle, sweetness and happiness itself, content to always stand aside for others, eager to do little kindnesses that came within her compass, never tempted because never seeing the temptation, happy in utter simplicity and ignorance; but a great moment found her wanting, a crisis she could not face; as she tried to think, right and wrong grew strangely confused. She only knew she loved Visconti, and that he was in danger.
She was too weak to kill herself, although she did not shrink from the cowardice of it, only from the pain; she was too weak to tell her father she still loved Visconti; she could not bear to see his face should she confess it; he would never understand.
"I will lock the door," she said, with wild eyes, "lock the door, and let no one enter till it is all over--and perhaps my heart will break," she added pitifully.
Then she stood a long time, still with hands locked tight. Suddenly she turned and her robe caught the jar of lilies, throwing them into the room.
There they lay, faded by the heat, amid the broken jar, and Graziosa looked with unseeing eyes, and picked them up mechanically.
Opposite hung a mirror, and as she raised her head she saw herself reflected there.
The lilies dropped from her hands as they had dropped before in the street, the day Tisio took her bracelet.
"He would have made me Duchess of Milan!"
She drew nearer and surveyed her pale face closely.
"Duchess of Milan! and he had all Italy to choose from!"
The thought brought a flush to her cheek.
"His sister is very, very beautiful. I am not so fair as she, nor as Della Scala's wife, and yet he thought me fit to share his throne----"
She moved toward the door with faltering steps.
"I must not think," she moaned. "I will lock the door--I will lock the door----"