"Why, having bestowed it on me, would you take it back? Why flee from your protector?
Why unceasingly threaten one who never threatens you, with revelation of secrets which are not yours and have aims beyond anything you can conceive?"
"Oh," said Lorenza, without replying to the question, "the prisoner who yearns for
freedom eventually obtains it, and your house bars will no more hold me than your wagon-sides."
"Happily for you, they are stout," replied Balsamo, with ominous tranquillity.
"Heaven will send another such storm as befel us in Lorraine, and some thunderbolt will shatter them."
"Take my advice to pray for nothing of the kind, Lorenza; distrust these romantic transports: I speak to you as a friend—listen to me."
Stunned at the height of her rebellion, Lorenza listened in spite of herself, from so much concentrated wrath being in his voice, and gloomy fire in his eye, while his white but powerful hand opened and shut so strangely as he slowly and solemnly spoke:
"Mark this, my child, that I have tried to have this place fit for a queen, with nothing lacking for your comfort. So calm your folly. Live here as you would do in your convent cell. You must become habituated to my presence. As I have great sorrows, I will confide in you; dreadful disappointment, for which I will crave a smile. The kinder, more patient and attentive you are, the more of your bars I will remove, so that in some months—who knows how soon?—you will become perhaps more free than I am, in the sense that you will not want to curtail my liberty."
"No, no," replied the Italian, unable to understand that firm resolution could be allied to such gentle words, "no more professions and falsehoods. You abducted me, so that I am my own property still; restore me to heaven, if you will not let me be my own mistress. I have borne with your despotism so far from remembering that you saved me from the robbers who would have ruined me; but this gratitude is much enfeebled. A few days more of this captivity against which I revolt, and I shall no longer feel obliged to you; a few more, and I shall perhaps believe you were in concert with those highwaymen."