"Seem! Nay, I am so! If I once paused to despond--even to doubt--I
should go mad. A foe to baffle, and an angel to save! Whose spirits
would not rise high, whose wits would not move quick to the warm pulse of
his heart?"




CHAPTER VIII.

Twilight was dark in the room to which Beatrice had conducted Violante.
A great change had come over Beatrice. Humble and weeping, she knelt
beside Violante, hiding her face, and imploring pardon. And Violante,
striving to resist the terror for which she now saw such cause as no
woman-heart can defy, still sought to soothe, and still sweetly assured
forgiveness.

Beatrice had learned, after quick and fierce questions, which at last
compelled the answers that cleared away every doubt, that her jealousy
had been groundless, that she had no rival in Violante. From that moment
the passions that had made her the tool of guilt abruptly vanished, and
her conscience startled her with the magnitude of her treachery. Perhaps
had Violante's heart been wholly free, or she had been of that mere
commonplace, girlish character which women like Beatrice are apt to
despise, the marchesa's affection for Peschiera, and her dread of him,
might have made her try to persuade her young kinswoman at least to
receive the count's visit,--at least to suffer him to make his own
excuses, and plead his own cause. But there had been a loftiness of
spirit in which Violante had first defied the mareliesa's questions,