Chambers were set at his disposal, and at Fanfulla's; servants were bidden to wait upon them; fresh raiment was laid out for them, and a noble supper was prepared to do honour to Francesco.

Nor did the generous Valdicampo's manner cool when he learned that Francesco was in disgrace at the Court of Babbiano and banished from the dominions of Duke Gian Maria.

He expressed sympathetic regret at so untoward a circumstance and discreetly refrained from passing any opinion thereupon.
Yet later, as they supped, and when perhaps the choice wines had somewhat relaxed his discretion, he permitted himself to speak of Gian Maria's ways in terms that were very far from laudatory.
"Here, in my house," he informed them, "he committed an outrage upon a poor unfortunate, for which an account may yet be asked of me--since it was under my roof that the thing befell, for all that I knew nothing of it." Upon being pressed by Paolo to tell them more, he parted with the information that the unfortunate in question was Urbino's jester Peppe.
At that, Paolo's glance became more intent.

The memory of his meeting with the fool and his mistress in the woods, a month ago, flashed now across his mind, and it came to him that he could rightly guess the source whence his cousin had drawn the information that had led to his own arrest and banishment.
"Of what nature was the outrage ?" he inquired.
"From what Peppe himself has told me it would seem that the fool was possessed of some knowledge which Gian Maria sought, but on which Peppe was bound by oath to silence.

Gian Maria caused him to be secretly taken and carried off from Urbino.