hesitate, though she felt a violent throb at the heart
when she heard the key turning in the lock behind her. She was in an
ante-chamber, and inferring from the light which shone through the door
of an adjoining room that she was to proceed, she went on. No sooner had
she entered the little closet than she found herself alone, with one of
her own sex.

"Annina!" burst from the lips of the unpractised prison-girl, under the
impulse of surprise.

"Gelsomina! The simple, quiet, whispering, modest Gelsomina!" returned
the other.

The words of Annina admitted but of one construction. Wounded, like the
bruised sensitive plant, Gelsomina withdrew her mask for air, actually
gasping for breath, between offended pride and wonder.

"Thou here!" she added, scarce knowing-what she uttered.

"Thou here!" repeated Annina, with such a laugh as escapes the degraded
when they believe the innocent reduced to their own level.

"Nay, I come on an errand of pity."

"Santa Maria! we are both here with the same end!"

"Annina! I know not what thou would'st say! This is surely the palace of
Don Camillo Monforte! a noble Neapolitan, who urges claims to the honors
of the Senate?"

"The gayest, the handsomest, the richest, and the most inconstant
cavalier in Venice! Hadst thou been here a thousand times thou could'st
not be better informed!"

Gelsomina listened in horror. Her artful cousin, who knew her character
to the full extent that vice can comprehend innocence, watched her
colorless cheek and contracting eye with secret triumph. At the first
moment she had believed all that she insinuated, but second thoughts and
a view of the visible distress of the frightened girl gave a new
direction to her suspicions.

"But I tell thee nothing new," she quickly added. "I only regret thou
should'st find me, where, no doubt, you expected to meet the Duca di
Sant' Agata himself."

"Annina!--This from thee!"

"Thou surely didst not come to his palace to seek thy cousin!"

Gelsomina had long been familiar with grief, but until this moment she
had never felt the deep humiliation of shame. Tears started from her
eyes, and she sank back into a seat, in utter inability to stand.

"I would not distress thee out of bearing," added the artful daughter of
the wine-seller. "But that we are both in the closet of the gayest
cavalier of Venice, is beyond dispute."

"I have told thee that pity for another brought me hither."

"Pity for Don Camillo."