fingers; and she could fix upon
nothing which, emanating from herself, had given him offense.

Had he then really lost his senses?

Madly did he seem to be rushing toward the Arno, on whose dark tide the
departing rays of the setting sun glinted with oscillating and dying
power.

She still continued to gaze from the window long after he had
disappeared; obscurity was gathering rapidly around; but, even had it
been noonday, she would have seen nothing. Her ideas grew bewildered:
mortification, grief, anger, suspicion, burning desire, all mingled
together and at length produced a species of stunning effect upon her,
so that the past appeared to be a dream, and the future was wrapt in the
darkest gloom and uncertainty.

This strange condition of her mind did not, however, last long; the
natural energy of her character speedily asserted its empire over the
intellectual lethargy which had seized upon her, and, awakening from her
stupor, she resolved to waste not another instant in useless conjecture
as to the cause of her lover's conduct.

Hastening to her own apartments, she dismissed Flora Francatelli, whom
she found there, with an abruptness of gesture and a frowning expression
of countenance amounting to an act of cruelty toward that resigned and
charming girl; so that as the latter hastened from the room, tears
started from her eyes, and she murmured to herself, "Can it be possible
that Donna Nisida suspects the attachment her brother has formed toward
me? Oh! if she do, the star of an evil destiny seems already to rule my
horoscope!"

Scarcely had Flora disappeared in this sorrowing manner, when Nisida
secured the outer door of her own suit of apartments, and hurried to her
bed-chamber. There she threw aside the garb belonging to her sex, and
assumed that of a cavalier, which she took from a press opening with a
secret spring. Then, having arranged her hair beneath a velvet tocque
shaded with waving black plumes, in such a manner that the disguise was
as complete as she could render it, she girt on a long rapier of finest
Milan steel, and throwing the short cloak edged with costly fur,
gracefully over her left shoulder, she quitted her chamber by a private
door opening behind the folds of the bed curtains.

A narrow and dark staircase admitted her into the gardens of the
Riverola mansion. These she crossed with a step so light and free, that
had it been possible to observe her in the darkness of the evening, sh