Buy Frank had arrived in Curzon Street, leaped from the cabriolet, knocked at the door, which was opened by a strange-looking man in a buff waistcoat and corduroy smalls. Frank gave a glance at this personage, pushed him aside, and rushed upstairs. He burst into the drawing-room,—no Beatrice was there. A thin elderly man, with a manuscript book in his hands, appeared engaged in examining the furniture, and making an inventory, with the aid of Madame di Negra’s upper servant. The thin man stared at Frank, and touched the hat which was on his head. The servant, who was a foreigner, approached Frank, and said, in broken English, that his lady did not receive,—that she was unwell, and kept her room. Frank thrust a sovereign into the servant’s hand, and begged him to tell Madame di Negra. that Mr. Hazeldean entreated the honour of an interview. As soon as the servant vanished on this errand, Frank seized the thin man by the arm. “What is this?—an execution?”
“Yes, sir.”
“For what sum?”
“Fifteen hundred and forty-seven pounds. We are the first in possession.”
“There are others, then?”
“Or else, sir, we should never have taken this step. Most painful to our feelings, sir; but these foreigners are here to day, and gone to-morrow. And—”
The servant re-entered. Madame di Negra would see Mr. Hazeldean. Would he walk upstairs? Frank hastened to obey this summons.
Madame di Negra was in a small room which was fitted up as a boudoir. Her eyes showed the traces of recent tears, but her face was composed, and even rigid, in its haughty though mournful expression. Frank, however, did not pause to notice her countenance, to hear her dignified salutation. All his timidity was gone. He saw but the woman whom he loved in distress and humiliation. As the door closed on him, he flung himself at her feet. He caught at her hand, the skirt of her robe.
“Oh, Madame di Negra!—Beatrice!” he exclaimed, tears in his eyes, and his voice half-broken by generous emotion; “forgive me, forgive me! don’t see in me a mere acquaintance. By accident I learned, or, rather, guessed—this—this strange insult to which you are so unworthily exposed. I am here. Think of me—but as a friend,—the truest friend. Oh, Beatrice,”—and he bent his head over the hand he held,—“I never dared say so before, it seems presuming to say it now, but I cannot help it. I love you,—I love you with my whole heart and soul; to serve you—if only but to serve you!—I ask nothing else.” And a sob went from his warm, young, foolish heart.
The Italian was deeply moved. Nor was her nature that of the mere sordid adventuress. So much love and so much confidence! She was not prepared to betray the one, and entrap the other.