from my door: those lips are too base to breathe the same air as honest
men. Begone, I say, begone!"

Though scarce a muscle moved in the lofty countenance of
Maltravers--though no frown darkened the majestic brow--though no fire
broke from the steadfast and scornful eye--there was a kingly authority
in the aspect, in the extended arm, the stately crest, and a power in
the swell of the stern voice, which awed and quelled the unhappy being
whose own passions exhausted and unmanned him. He strove to fling back
scorn to scorn, but his lips trembled, and his voice died in hollow
murmurs within his breast. Maltravers regarded him with a crushing and
intense disdain. The Italian with shame and wrath wrestled against
himself, but in vain: the cold eye that was fixed upon him was as a
spell, which the fiend within him could not rebel against or resist.
Mechanically he moved to the door,--then turning round, he shook his
clenched hand at Maltravers, and, with a wild, maniacal laugh, rushed
from the apartment.



CHAPTER VI.

"On some fond breast the parting soul relies."--GRAY.

NOT a day passed in which Maltravers was absent from the side of
Florence. He came early, he went late. He subsided into his former
character of an accepted suitor, without a word of explanation with Lord
Saxingham. That task was left to Florence. She doubtless performed it
well, for his lordship seemed satisfied though grave, and, almost for
the first time in his life, sad. Maltravers never reverted to the cause