ive they all sound in the
night stillness! The nightingale sings from the dark shadows of the
wilderness; and the musky odors of the cyclamen come floating ever
and anon through the casement, in that strange, cloudy way in which
flower-scents seem to come and go in the air in the night season.

At last the Princess fancies she hears the distant tramp of horses'
feet, and her heart beats so that she can scarcely listen: now she hears
it,--and now a rising wind, sweeping across the Campagna, seems to bear
it moaning away. She goes to a door and looks out into the darkness.
Yes, she hears it now, quick and regular,--the beat of many horses' feet
coming in hot haste along the road. Surely the few servants whom she has
sent cannot make all this noise! and she trembles with vague affright.
Perhaps it is a tyrannical message, bringing imprisonment and death. She
calls a maid, and bids her bring lights into the reception-hall. A
few moments more, and there is a confused stamping of horses' feet
approaching the house, and she hears the voices of her servants. She
runs into the piazza, and sees dismounting a knight who carries Agnes in
his arms pale and fainting. Old Elsie and Monica, too, dismount, with
the Princess's men-servants; but, wonderful to tell, there seems besides
them to be a train of some hundred armed horsemen.

The timid Princess was so fluttered and bewildered that she lost all
presence of mind, and stood in uncomprehending wonder, while Monica
pushed authoritatively into the house, and beckoned the knight to bring
Agnes and lay her on a sofa, when she and old Elsie busied themselves
vigorously with restoratives.

The Lady Paulina, as soon as she could collect her scattered senses,
recognized in Agostino the banished lord of the Sarelli family, a race
who had shared with her own the hatred and cruelty of the Borgia tribe;
and he in turn had recognized a daughter of the Colonnas.

He drew her aside into a small boudoir adjoining the apartment.

"Noble lady," he said, "we are companions in misfortune, and so, I
trust, you will pardon what seems a tumultuous intrusion on your
privacy. I and my men came to Rome in disguise, that we might watch over
and protect this poor innocent, who now finds asylum with you."

"My Lord," said the Princess, "I see in this event the wonderful working
of the good God. I have but just learned that this young person is my
near kinswoman; it was only this morning that the fact was c