Nina turned pale. “Fear not,” she said, with a low but determined voice; “fear not, that men’s lips should say Rienzi’s wife delivered him. None in this corrupted Court know that I am thy wife.”
“Woman,” said the Tribune, sternly; “thy lips elude the answer I would seek. In our degenerate time and land, thy sex and ours forget too basely what foulness writes a leprosy in the smallest stain upon a matron’s honour. That thy heart would never wrong me, I believe; but if thy weakness, thy fear of my death should wrong me, thou art a bitterer foe to Rienzi than the swords of the Colonna. Nina, speak!”
“Oh, that my soul could speak,” answered Nina. “Thy words are music to me, and not a thought of mine but echoes them. Could I touch this hand, could I meet that eye, and not know that death were dearer to thee than shame? Rienzi, when last we parted, in sadness, yet in hope, what were thy words to me?”
“I remember them well,” returned the Tribune: “‘I leave thee,’ I said, ‘to keep alive at the Emperor’s Court, by thy genius, the Great Cause. Thou hast youth and beauty—and courts have lawless and ruffian suitors. I give thee no caution; it were beneath thee and me. But I leave thee the power of death.’ And with that, Nina—”
“Thy hands tremblingly placed in mine this dagger. I live—need I say more?”
“My noble and beloved Nina, it is enough. Keep the dagger yet.”
“Yes; till we meet in the Capitol of Rome!”
A slight tap was heard at the door; Nina regained, in an instant, her disguise.
“It is on the stroke of midnight,” said the gaoler, appearing at the threshold.
“I come,” said Nina.