"Silence is sometimes eloquence," said Schedoni, significantly.
The Marchesa mused; for her conscience also was eloquent. She tried to overcome its voice, but it would be heard; and sometimes such starts of horrible conviction came over her mind, that she felt as one who, awaking from a dream, opens his eyes only to measure the depth of the precipice on which he totters. In such moments she was astonished, that she had paused for an instant upon a subject so terrible as that of murder. The sophistry of the Confessor, together with the inconsistencies which he had betrayed, and which had not escaped the notice of the Marchesa, even at the time they were uttered, though she had been unconscious of her own, then became more strongly apparent, and she almost determined to suffer the poor Ellena to live. But returning passion, like a wave that has recoiled from the shore, afterwards came with recollected energy, and swept from her feeble mind the barriers, which reason and conscience had begun to rear.
"This confidence with which you have thought proper to honour me," said Schedoni, at length, and paused; "This affair, so momentous"——
"Ay, this affair," interrupted the Marchesa, in a hurried manner,—"but when, and where, good father? Being once convinced, I am anxious to have it settled."
"That must be as occasion offers," replied the Monk, thoughtfully.—"On the shore of the Adriatic, in the province of Apulia, not far from Manfredonia, is a house that might suit the purpose. It is a lone dwelling on the beach, and concealed from travellers, among the forests, which spread for many miles along the coast."
"And the people?" said the Marchesa.
"Ay, daughter, or why travel so far as Apulia? It is inhabited by one poor man, who sustains a miserable existence by fishing. I know him, and could unfold the reasons of his solitary life;—but no matter, it is sufficient that I know him."
"And would trust him, father?"
"Ay, lady, with the life of this girl——though scarcely with my own."
"How! Is he is such a villain he may not be trusted! Think further. But now, you objected to a mercenary, yet this man is one!"