I would gladly see you, but I cannot call openly at the house in
which you live. Perhaps I may have it in my power to arrange family
dissensions,—to repair any wrongs your father may have sustained.
Perhaps I may be enabled to render yourself an essential service.
But for all this it is necessary that we should meet and confer
frankly. Meanwhile time presses, delay is forbidden. Will you meet
me, an hour after noon, in the lane, just outside the private gate
of your gardens? I shall be alone, and you cannot fear to meet one
of your own sex, and a kinswoman. Ah, I so desire to see you!
Come, I beseech you.
BEATRICE.
Violante read, and her decision was taken. She was naturally fearless, and there was little that she would not have braved for the chance of serving her father. And now all peril seemed slight in comparison with that which awaited her in Randal’s suit, backed by her father’s approval. Randal had said that Madame di Negra alone could aid her in escape from himself. Harley had said that Madame di Negra had generous qualities; and who but Madame di Negra would write herself a kinswoman, and sign herself “Beatrice”?
A little before the appointed hour, she stole unobserved through the trees, opened the little gate, and found herself in the quiet, solitary lane. In a few minutes; a female figure came up, with a quick, light step; and throwing aside her veil, said, with a sort of wild, suppressed energy, “It is you! I was truly told. Beautiful! beautiful! And oh! what youth and what bloom!”
The voice dropped mournfully; and Violante, surprised by the tone, and blushing under the praise, remained a moment silent; then she said, with some hesitation,
“You are, I presume, the Marchesa di Negra? And I have heard of you enough to induce me to trust you.”
“Of me! From whom?” asked Beatrice, almost fiercely. “From Mr Leslie, and—and—”
“Go on; why falter?”
“From Lord L’Estrange.”
“From no one else?”
“Not that I remember.”