elief that, even if he loved
her, he would not dare to hazard the avowal.

And thus, one day, yielding, as she had ever been wont to yield, to the
impulse of her quick Italian heart--how she never remembered, in
what words she could never recall--she spoke, she owned her love, she
pleaded, with tears and blushes, for love in return. All that passed was
to her as a dream,--a dream from which she woke with a fierce sense
of agony, of humiliation,--woke as the woman "scorned." No matter how
gratefully, how tenderly Leonard had replied, the reply was refusal.

For the first time she learned she had a rival; that all he could give
of love was long since, from his boyhood, given to another. For the
first time in her life, that ardent nature knew jealousy, its torturing
stings, its thirst for vengeance, its tempest of loving hate. But, to
outward appearance, silent and cold she stood as marble. Words that
sought to soothe fell on her ear unheeded: they were drowned by the
storm within. Pride was the first feeling which dominated the warring
elements that raged in her soul. She tore her hand from that which
clasped hers with so loyal a respect. She could have spurned the form
that knelt at her feet, not for love, but for pardon. She pointed to the
door with the gesture of an insulted queen. She knew no more till she
was alone. Then came that rapid flash of conjecture peculiar to the
storms of jealousy; that which seems to single from all nature the
one object to dread and to destroy; the conjecture so often false, yet
received at once by our convictions as the revelation of instinctive
truth. He to whom she had humbled herself loved another; whom but
Violante,--whom else, young and beautiful, had he named in the record of
his life?--None! And he had sought to interest her, Beatrice di Negra,
in the object of his love; hinted at dangers which Beatrice knew too
well; implied trust in Beatrice's will to protect. Blind fool that she
had been! This, then, was the reason why he had come, day after day,
to Beatrice's house; this was the charm that had drawn him thither;
this--she pressed her hands to her burning temples, as if to stop the
torture of thought. Suddenly a voice was heard below, the door opened,
and Randal Leslie entered.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Punctually at eight o'clock that evening, Baron Levy welcomed the new
ally he had secured. The pair dined en tete a tete, discussing general
matters till the servants left them