who has loved--Is it not that you love another? Speak."

"I do not know. Nay, not love,--it was a romance; it is a thing
impossible. Do not question,--I cannot answer." And the broken words
were choked by sudden tears.

Beatrice's face grew hard and pitiless. Again she lowered her veil, and
withdrew her hand from the check-string; but the coachman had felt the
touch, and halted. "Drive on," said Beatrice, "as you were directed."

Both were now long silent,--Violante with great difficulty recovering
from her emotion, Beatrice breathing hard, and her arms folded firmly
across her breast.

Meanwhile the carriage had entered London; it passed the quarter in which
Madame di Negra's house was situated; it rolled fast over a bridge; it
whirled through a broad thoroughfare, then through defiles of lanes, with
tall blank dreary houses on either side. On it went, and on, till
Violante suddenly took alarm. "Do you live so far?" she said, drawing up
the blind, and gazing in dismay on the strange, ignoble suburb. "I shall
be missed already. Oh, let us turn back, I beseech you!"

"We are nearly there now. The driver has taken this road in order to
avoid those streets in which we might have been seen together,--perhaps
by my brother himself. Listen to me, and talk of-of the lover whom you
rightly associate with a vain romance. 'Impossible,'--yes, it is
impossible!"

Violante clasped her hands before her eyes, and bowed down her head.
"Why are you so cruel?" said she. "This is not what you promised. How