you inflict with such playful scorn. But whatever his penance, contempt now or poverty later, I feel that his sister should be by his side to share it. I am not innocent if he be guilty; and, wreck though he be, nothing else on this dark sea of life is now left to me to cling to. Hush, my Lord! I shall not leave this vessel. All that I entreat of you is, to order your men to respect my brother, since a woman will be by his side."
"But, Marchesa, this cannot be; and—"
"Beatrice, Beatrice—and me!—our betrothal? Do you forget me?" cried Frank, in reproachful agony.
"No, young and too noble lover; I shall remember you ever in my prayers. But listen. I have been deceived, hurried on, I might say, by others, but also, and far more, by my own mad and blinded heart,—deceived, hurried on, to wrong you and to belie myself. My shame burns into me when I think that I could have inflicted on you the just anger of your family, linked you to my own ruined fortunes,—my own—"
"Your own generous, loving heart!—that is all I asked!" cried Frank.
"Cease, cease! that heart is mine still!" Tears gushed from the Italian's eyes.
"Englishman, I never loved you; this heart was dead to you, and it will be dead to all else forever. Farewell. You will forget me sooner than you think for,—sooner than I shall forget you, as a friend, as a brother—if brothers had natures as tender and as kind as yours! Now, my Lord, will you give me your arm? I would join the count."
"Stay; one word, Madame," said Frank, very pale, and through his set teeth, but calmly, and with a pride on his brow which had never before dignified its habitual careless expression,—"one word. I may not be worthy of you in anything else, but an honest love, that never doubted, never suspected, that would have clung to you though all the world were against,—such a love makes the meanest man of worth. One word, frank and open. By all that you hold most sacred in your creed, did you speak the truth when you said that you never loved me?"
Beatrice bent down her head; she was abashed before this manly nature that she had so deceived, and perhaps till then undervalued.
"Pardon, pardon," she said, in reluctant accents, half-choked by the rising of a sob.
At her hesitation, Frank's face lighted as if with sudden hope. She raised her eyes, and saw the change in him, then glanced where Leonard stood, mournful and motionless. She shivered, and added firmly,
"Yes, pardon; for I spoke the truth, and I had no heart to give. It might have been as wax to another,—it was of granite to you." She paused, and muttered inly, "Granite, and—broken!"
Frank said not a word more. He stood rooted to the spot, not even gazing after Beatrice as she passed on, leaning on the arm of Lord L'Estrange. He then walked resolutely away, and watched the boat that the men were now lowering from the side of the vessel. Beatrice stopped when she came near the place where Violante stood, answering in agitated whispers her father's anxious questions. As she stopped, she leaned more heavily upon Harley. "It is your arm that trembles now, Lord L'Estrange," said she, with a mournful smile, and, quitting him ere he could answer, she bowed down her head meekly before Violante. "You have pardoned me already," she said, in a tone that reached only the girl's ear, "and my last words shall not be of the past. I see your future spread bright before me under those steadfast stars. Love still; hope and trust. These are the last words of her who will soon die to the world. Fair maid, they are prophetic!"
Violante shrunk back to her father's breast, and there hid her glowing face, resigning her hand to Beatrice, who pressed it to her bosom. The marchesa then came back to Harley, and disappeared with him in the interior of the vessel.
When Harley again came on deck, he seemed much flurried and disturbed. He kept aloof from the duke and Violante, and was the last to enter the boat, that was now lowered into the water.
As he and his companions reached the land, they saw the vessel in movement, gliding slowly down the river. "Courage, Leonard, courage!" murmured Harley. "You grieve, and nobly. But you have shunned the worst and most vulgar deceit in civilized life; you have not simulated love. Better that yon poor lady should be, awhile, the sufferer from a harsh truth, than the eternal martyr of a flattering lie! Alas, my Leonard! with the love of the poet's dream are linked only the Graces; with the love of the human heart come the awful Fates!"
"My Lord, poets do not dream when they love. You will learn how the feelings are deep in proportion as the fancies are vivid, when you read that confession of genius and woe which I have left in your hands."
Leonard turned away. Harley's gaze followed him with inquiring interest, and suddenly encountered the soft dark grateful eyes of Violante. "The Fates, the Fates!" murmured Harley.
CHAPTER IX
We are at Norwood in the sage's drawing-room. Violante has long since retired to rest. Harley, who had accompanied the father and daughter to their home, is still conversing with the former.
"Indeed, my dear Duke," said Harley
"Hush, hush! Diavolo, don't call me Duke yet; I am at home here once more as Dr. Riccabocca."
"My dear doctor, then, allow me to assure you that you overrate my claim to your thanks. Your old friends, Leonard and Frank Hazeldean, must come in for their share. Nor is the faithful Giacomo to be forgotten."
"Continue your explanation."
"In the first place, I learned, through Frank, that one Baron Levy, a certain fashionable money-lender, and general ministrant to the affairs of fine gentlemen, was just about to purchase a yacht from Lord Spendquick on behalf of the count. A short interview with Spendquick enabled me to outbid the usurer, and conclude a bargain by which the yacht became mine,—a promise to assist Spendquick in extricating himself from the claws of the money-lender (which I trust to do by reconciling him with his father, who is a man of liberality and sense) made Spendquick readily connive at my scheme for outwitting the enemy. He allowed Levy to suppose that the count might take possession of the vessel; but affecting an engagement, and standing out for terms, postponed the final settlement of the purchase-money till the next day. I was thus master of the vessel, which I felt sure was destined to serve Peschiera's infamous design. But it was my business not to alarm the count's suspicions; I therefore permitted the pirate crew he had got together to come on board. I knew I could get rid of them when necessary. Meanwhile, Frank undertook to keep close to the count until he could see and cage within his lodgings the servant whom Peschiera had commissioned to attend his sister. If I could but apprehend this servant, I had a sanguine hope that I could discover and free your daughter before Peschiera could even profane her with his presence. But Frank, alas! was no pupil of Machiavelli. Perhaps the count detected his secret thoughts under his open countenance, perhaps merely wished to get rid of a companion very much in his way; but, at all events, he contrived to elude our young friend as cleverly as you or I could have done,—told him that Beatrice herself was at Roehampton, had borrowed the count's carriage to go there, volunteered to take Frank to the house, took him. Frank found himself in a drawing-room; and after waiting a few minutes, while the count went out on pretence of seeing his sister, in pirouetted a certain distinguished opera-dancer! Meanwhile the count was fast back on the road to London, and Frank had to return as he could. He then hunted for the count everywhere, and saw him no more. It was late in the day when Frank found me out with this news. I became seriously alarmed. Peschiera might perhaps learn my counter-scheme with the yacht, or he might postpone sailing until he had terrified or entangled Violante into some—-In short, everything was to be dreaded from a man of the count's temper. I had no clew to the place to which your daughter was taken, no excuse to
