hat cleared away every doubt, that her jealousy
had been groundless, that she had no rival in Violante. From that moment
the passions that had made her the tool of guilt abruptly vanished, and
her conscience startled her with the magnitude of her treachery. Perhaps
had Violante's heart been wholly free, or she had been of that mere
commonplace, girlish character which women like Beatrice are apt to
despise, the marchesa's affection for Peschiera, and her dread of him,
might have made her try to persuade her young kinswoman at least to
receive the count's visit,--at least to suffer him to make his own
excuses, and plead his own cause. But there had been a loftiness of
spirit in which Violante had first defied the mareliesa's questions,
followed by such generous, exquisite sweetness, when the girl perceived
how that wild heart was stung and maddened, and such purity of mournful
candour when she had overcome her own virgin bashfulness sufficiently to
undeceive the error she detected, and confess where her own affections
were placed, that Beatrice bowed before her as mariner of old to some
fair saint that had allayed the storm.

"I have deceived you!" she cried, through her sobs; "but I will now save
you at any cost. Had you been as I deemed,--the rival who had despoiled
all the hopes of my future life,--I could without remorse have been
the accomplice I am pledged to be. But now you--Oh, you, so good and
so noble--you can never, be the bride of Peschiera. Nay, start not; he
shall renounce his designs forever, or I will go myself to our emperor,
and expose the dark secrets of his life. Return with me quick to the
home from which I ensnared you."

Beatrice's hand was on the door while she spoke. Suddenly her face fell,
her lips grew white; the door was locked from without. She called,--no
one answered; the bell-pull in the room gave no sound; the windows were
high and barred,--they did not look on the river, nor the street, but on
a close, gloomy, silent yard, high blank walls all round it; no one to
hear the cry of distress, rang it ever so loud and sharp.

Beatrice divined that she herself had been no less ensnared than her
companion; that Peschiera, distrustful of her firmness in evil, had
precluded her from the power of reparation. She was in a house only
tenanted by his hirelings. Not a hope to save Violante from a fate that
now appalled her seemed to remain. Thus, in incoherent self-reproaches
and frenzied tears, Bea