before forced itself
dimly on his mind. It was true, however, that, not seeing the schemes of
Rienzi backed by any physical power, and never yet having witnessed the
mighty force of a moral revolution, he did not conceive that any rise
to which he might instigate the people could be permanently successful:
and, as for his punishment, in that city, where all justice was the
slave of interest, Adrian knew himself powerful enough to obtain
forgiveness even for the greatest of all crimes--armed insurrection
against the nobles. As these thoughts recurred to him, he gained the
courage to console and cheer Irene. But his efforts were only partially
successful. Awakened by her fears to that consideration of the future
which hitherto she had forgotten, Irene, for the first time, seemed deaf
to the charmer's voice.

"Alas!" said she, sadly, "even at the best, what can this love, that we
have so blindly encouraged--what can it end in? Thou must not wed with
one like me; and I! how foolish I have been!"

"Recall thy senses then, Irene," said Adrian, proudly, partly perhaps
in anger, partly in his experience of the sex. "Love another, and more
wisely, if thou wilt; cancel thy vows with me, and continue to think it
a crime to love, and a folly to be true!"

"Cruel!" said Irene, falteringly, and in her turn alarmed. "Dost thou
speak in earnest?"

"Tell me, ere I answer you, tell me this: come death, come anguish, come
a whole life of sorrow, as the end of this love, wouldst thou yet repent
that thou hast loved? If so, thou knowest not the love that I feel for
thee."

"Never! never can I repent!" said Irene, falling upon Adrian's neck;
"forgive me!"

"But is there, in truth," said Adrian, a little while after this
lover-like quarrel and reconciliation, "is there, in truth, so marked
a difference between thy brother's past and his present bearing? How
knowest thou that the time for action is so near?"

"Because now he sits closeted whole nights with all ranks of men; he
shuts up his books,--he reads no more,--but, when alone, walks to and
fro his chamber, muttering to himself. Sometimes he pauses before the
calendar, which of late he has fixed with his own hand against the wall,
and passes his finger over the letters, till he comes to some chosen
date, and then he plays with his sword and smiles. But two nights since,
arms, too, in great number were brought to the house; and I heard the
chief of the men who brought them, a gri