abated, and he replied: "I thank you
for your kindness, sir, but my sorrow arises from self-reproach. I have
inflicted injuries which can never be redressed." He hesitated, as if
wishing, but dreading to say more. Then changing the tone of his voice,
as if he were about to speak on some totally different subject, he
continued addressing himself to Colonel Rivolta:--"I presume, sir, you
are a native of Genoa, or you are very familiar with that city." "I was
born," replied the foreigner, "at Naples; but very early in life I was
removed to Genoa, that I might be engaged in merchandize; for my
patrimony was very small, and my relations would have despised me, had I
endeavoured by any occupation to gain a livelihood in my native city."
"Then you were not originally destined for the army?" "I was not; but
after I had been some few years in Genoa, I began to grow weary of the
pursuits of merchandize, and indeed to feel some of that pride of which
I had accused my relations, and I thought that I should be satisfied
with very little if I might be free from the occupation of the merchant;
and while I was so thinking, I met by chance an old acquaintance who
persuaded me to undertake the profession of arms, to which I was indeed
not reluctant. And so I left my merchandise, and did not see Genoa again
for nearly two years. It was then that I was so much interested in that
scene which the picture portrays; for in a very small house which is in
the same street, directly opposite to that palace, there lived an old
woman, whose name was ----"

The attention of the old gentleman had been powerfully arrested by the
commencement of the Italian's narrative; and he listened very calmly
till the narrator arrived at the point when he was about to mention the
name of the old woman who lived opposite to the palace in question: then
was Mr. Martindale again excited, and without waiting for the conclusion
of the sentence, interrupted it by exclaiming: "Ah! what! do you know
that old woman? Is she living? Where is she?--Stop--no--let me
see--impossible!--Why I must be nearly seventy--yes--are you sure? Is
not her name Bianchi?"

To this hurried and confused mass of interrogation, the colonel replied
that her name was Bianchi; but that she had died nearly twenty years
ago, at a very advanced age, being at the time of her death nearly
ninety years of age. Hearing this, the old gentleman assumed a great
calmness and composure of manner, though he tr