the
principal apartment of the house, she paced its narrow boundaries
with tremulous and agitated steps: she recalled the frightful suit
of Nicot,--the injurious taunt of Glyndon; and she sickened at the
remembrance of the hollow applauses which, bestowed on the actress, not
the woman, only subjected her to contumely and insult. In that room the
recollection of her father's death, the withered laurel and the broken
chords, rose chillingly before her. Hers, she felt, was a yet gloomier
fate,--the chords may break while the laurel is yet green. The lamp,
waning in its socket, burned pale and dim, and her eyes instinctively
turned from the darker corner of the room. Orphan, by the hearth of thy
parent, dost thou fear the presence of the dead!

And was Zanoni indeed about to quit Naples? Should she see him no
more? Oh, fool, to think that there was grief in any other thought! The
past!--that was gone! The future!--there was no future to her, Zanoni
absent! But this was the night of the third day on which Zanoni had told
her that, come what might, he would visit her again. It was, then, if
she might believe him, some appointed crisis in her fate; and how should
she tell him of Glyndon's hateful words? The pure and the proud mind
can never confide its wrongs to another, only its triumphs and its
happiness. But at that late hour would Zanoni visit her,--could she
receive him? Midnight was at hand. Still in undefined suspense, in
intense anxiety, she lingered in the room. The quarter before midnight
sounded, dull and distant. All was still, and she was about to pass to
her sleeping-room, when she heard the hoofs of a horse at full speed;
the sound ceased, there was a knock at the door. Her heart beat
violently; but fear gave way to another sentiment when she heard a
voice, too well known, calling on her name. She paused, and then, with
the fearlessness of innocence, descended and unbarred the door.

Zanoni entered with a light and hasty step. His horseman's cloak fitted
tightly to his noble form, and his broad hat threw a gloomy shade over
his commanding features.

The girl followed him into the room she had just left, trembling and
blushing deeply, and stood before him with the lamp she held shining
upward on her cheek and the long hair that fell like a shower of light
over the half-clad shoulders and heaving bust.

"Viola," said Zanoni, in a voice that spoke deep emotion, "I am by thy
side once more to save thee. Not a m