put his arm round Trenta's burly, well-filled figure,
and drew him down gently into the depths of the arm-chair. "Listen,
cavaliere--listen to what I have to say before you altogether condemn
me. The sacrifice I am making costs me more than I can express. You
hold before my eyes what is to me more precious than life; you tempt
me with what every sense within me--heart, soul, manliness--urges me
to clutch; yet I dare not accept it."

He paused; so profound a sigh escaped him that it almost formed itself
into a groan.

"I don't understand all this," said Trenta, reddening with
indignation. He had been by degrees collecting his scattered senses.
"I don't understand it at all. You have, count, placed me in a most
awkward position; I feel it very much. You speak of a mistake--a
misapprehension. I beg to say there has been none on my part; I am
not in the habit of making mistakes."--It will be seen that the
cavaliere's temper was rising with the sense of the intolerable injury
Count Marescotti was inflicting on himself and all concerned.--"I have
undertaken a very serious responsibility; I have failed, you tell me.
What am I to say to the marchesa?"

His shrill voice rose into an angry cry. Altogether, it was more than
he could bear. For a moment, the injury to Enrica was forgotten in his
own personal sense of wrong. It was too galling to fail in an official
embassy Trenta, who always acted upon mature reflection, abhorred
failure.

"Tell her," answered the count, raising his voice, his eyes kindling
as he spoke--"tell her I am here in Lucca on a sacred mission. I
confide it to her honor. A man sworn to a mission cannot marry. As in
the kingdom of heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage,
so I, the anointed priest of the people, dare not marry; it would be
sacrilege." His powerful voice rang through the room; he raised his
hands aloft, as if invoking some unseen power to whom he belonged.
"When you, cavaliere, entered this room, I was about to confide my
position to you. I am at Lucca--Lucca, once the foster-mother of
progress, and, I pray Heaven, to become so again!--I am at Lucca to
found a mission of freedom." A sudden gesture told him how much Trenta
was taken aback at this announcement. "We differ in our opinions as
widely as the poles," continued the count, warming to his subject,
"but you are my old friend--I felt you would not betray me. Now, after
what has passed, as a man of honor, I am bound to conf