Twilight opens in a garden where beauty wears a mask to protect it from the years, and twilight brings regrets and confessions. A young courtier stumbles upon a Duchess at dusk—painted, jewelled, and demanding. She wants him to be her father confessor, but what does Lucrezia Borgia want to confess and why does he run away?

Publication: First published in God’s Playthings (E. P. Dutton, New York, 1913), under Marjorie Bowen’s principal pseudonym.

Setting and subject: Ferrara; Lucrezia Borgia in her final twilight.

Author: Marjorie Bowen (Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long, 1885–1952), prolific British writer of historical and supernatural fiction.

Noted for: Lush atmosphere, moral chiaroscuro, and “twilight tales” that fuse history with the uncanny.