remonstrate with me----"

"Well, my lord," interrupted the count impatiently, "your own private
affairs have no particular interest for me--at this moment; and as for
any business on which you may wish to speak to me, I shall be pleased if
you postpone it till to-morrow."

"Your lordship's wishes are commands with me," said Manuel, with a
polite salutation. And having made a low bow to Giulia, he quitted the
room--not by the private door, be it well understood, but by that which
had ere now admitted the Count of Arestino.

The moment the door had closed behind the Marquis of Orsini, the count
approached his wife, and said in a cold, severe manner: "Your ladyship
receives visitors at a late hour."

He glanced as he spoke toward the dial of the clepsydra, and Giulia
followed his look in the same direction; it was half an hour after
midnight.

"The marquis explained to your lordship, or partially so, the motive of
his importunate visit," said Giulia, endeavoring to appear calm and
collected.

"The marquis is an unworthy--reckless--unprincipled young man,"
exclaimed the count, fixing a stern, searching gaze upon Giulia's
countenance, as if with the iron of his words he would probe the depths
of her soul. "He is a confirmed gamester--overwhelmed with debts--and
has tarnished, by his profligacy, the proud name that he bears. Even the
friendship which existed for many, many years between his deceased
father and myself, shall no longer induce me to receive at this house a
young man whose reputation is all but tainted, even in a city of
dissipation and debauchery, such as, alas! the once glorious Florence
has become! For his immorality is not confined to gaming and wanton
extravagance," continued the count, his glance becoming more keen, as
his words fell like drops of molten lead upon the heart of Giulia; "but
his numerous intrigues amongst women--his perfidy to those confiding and
deceived fair ones----"

"Surely, my lord," said the countess, vainly endeavoring to subdue the
writhings of torture which this language excited,--"surely the Marquis
d'Orsini is wronged by the breath of scandal?"

"No, Giulia, he is an unprincipled spendthrift," returned the count, who
never once took his eyes off his wife's countenance while he was
speaking:--"an unprincipled spendthrift," he added emphatically,--"a man
lost to all sense of honor--a ruined gamester--a heartless seducer--a
shame, a blot, a stigma upon the aristocracy of F