es:
a daughter can humiliate herself before her father. My Luigi, give me my
Luigi, or I die!"
The violent excitement which suffocated her stopped her words, for she
had no voice; her convulsive movements showed plainly that she lay, as
it were, between life and death. Bartolomeo roughly pushed her from him.
"Go," he said. "The wife of Luigi Porta cannot be a Piombo. I have no
daughter. I have not the strength to curse you, but I cast you off; you
have no father. My Ginevra Piombo is buried here," he said, in a deep
voice, pressing violently on his heart. "Go, leave my house, unhappy
girl," he added, after a moment's silence. "Go, and never come into my
sight again."
So saying, he took Ginevra by the arm to the gate of the house and
silently put her out.
"Luigi!" cried Ginevra, entering the humble lodging of her lover,--"my
Luigi, we have no other fortune than our love."
"Then am I richer than the kings of the earth!" he cried.
"My father and my mother have cast me off," she said, in deepest
sadness.
"I will love you in place of them."
"Then let us be happy,--we WILL be happy!" she cried, with a gayety in
which there was something dreadful.
CHAPTER V. MARRIAGE
The day after Ginevra was driven from her father's house she went to ask
Madame Servin for asylum and protection until the period fixed by law
for her marriage to Luigi.
Here began for her that apprenticeship to trouble which the world strews
about the path of those who do not follow its conventions. Madame Servin
received her very coldly, being much annoyed by the harm which Ginevra's
affair had inflicted on her husband, and told her, in politely cautious
words, that she must not count on her help in future. Too proud to
persist, but amazed at a selfishness hitherto unknown to her, the girl
took a room in the lodging-house that was nearest to that of Luigi. The
son of the Portas passed all his days at the feet of his future wife;
and his youthful love, the purity of his words, dispersed the clouds
from the mind of the banished daughter; the future was so beautiful
as he painted it that she ended by smiling joyfully, though without
forgetting her father's severity.
One morning the servant of the lodging house brought to Ginevra's room
a number of trunks and packages containing stuffs, linen, clothes, and
a great quantity of other articles necessary for a young wife in setting
up a home of her own. In this welcome provision she r
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