rk sea of life
is now left to me to cling to. Hush, my Lord! I shall not leave this
vessel. All that I entreat of you is, to order your men to respect my
brother, since a woman will be by his side."

"But, Marchesa, this cannot be; and--"

"Beatrice, Beatrice--and me!--our betrothal? Do you forget me?" cried
Frank, in reproachful agony.

"No, young and too noble lover; I shall remember you ever in my prayers.
But listen. I have been deceived, hurried on, I might say, by others,
but also, and far more, by my own mad and blinded heart,--deceived,
hurried on, to wrong you and to belie myself. My shame burns into me
when I think that I could have inflicted on you the just anger of your
family, linked you to my own ruined fortunes,--my own--"

"Your own generous, loving heart!--that is all I asked!" cried Frank.

"Cease, cease! that heart is mine still!" Tears gushed from the
Italian's eyes.

"Englishman, I never loved you; this heart was dead to you, and it will
be dead to all else forever. Farewell. You will forget me sooner than
you think for,--sooner than I shall forget you, as a friend, as a
brother--if brothers had natures as tender and as kind as yours! Now, my
Lord, will you give me your arm? I would join the count."

"Stay; one word, Madame," said Frank, very pale, and through his set
teeth, but calmly, and with a pride on his brow which had never before
dignified its habitual careless expression,--"one word. I may not be
worthy of you in anything else, but an honest love, that never doubted,
never suspected, that would have clung to you though all the world were
against,--such a love makes the meanest man of worth. One word, frank
and open. By all that you hold most sacred in your creed, did you speak
the truth when you said that you never loved me?"

Beatrice bent down her head; she was abashed before this manly nature
that she had so deceived, and perhaps till then undervalued.

"Pardon, pardon," she said, in reluctant accents, half-choked by the
rising of a sob.

At her hesitation, Frank's face lighted as if with sudden hope. She
raised her eyes, and saw the change in him, then glanced where Leonard
stood, mournful and motionless. She shivered, and added firmly,

"Yes, pardon; for I spoke the truth, and I had no heart to give. It
might have been as wax to another,--it was of granite to you." She
paused, and muttered inly, "Granite, and--broken!"

Frank said not a word more. He stood rooted to the s