II.
The Marchesa sat for a long time silent, and we watched the phantom life of the city around us. Presently she sighed deeply and said:
"Ah, me! it is the eve of the Purification. My son, seventy years ago to-day the woman was born whose connection with the house of Negropontini has shrouded it in gloom, like the portrait you have seen in the saloon. Seventy years ago to-day my father's neighbor, the Count Balbo, saw for the first time the face of the first daughter his wife had given him. The countess lay motionless—the flame of existence flickered between life and death.
"'Adorable Mother of God!' said the count, as he knelt by her bedside, 'if thou restorest my wife, my daughter shall be consecrated to thy service.'
"The slow hours dragged heavily by. The mother lived.
"My brother Camillo and I were but two and four years older than our little neighbor. We were children together, and each other's playmates. When the little neighbor, Sulpizia Balbo, was fourteen, Camillo was eighteen. My son, the sky of Venice never shone on a more beautiful girl, on a youth more grave and tender. He loved her with his whole soul. Gran' Dio! 'tis the old, old story!
"She was proud, wayward, passionate, with a splendor of wit and unusual intelligence. He was calm, sweet, wise; with a depthless tenderness of passion. But Sulpizia inherited her will from her father, and at fourteen she was sacrificed to the vow he had made. She was buried alive in the convent of our Lady of the Isle, and my brother's heart with her.