"I will not reconsider it!" cried Count Nobili, indignantly. "I deny your right to advise me. You have brought me into this room for no purpose that I can comprehend. What have I in common with the advocate of my enemy? I desire to leave Corellia. You are detaining me. Here is the deed of separation "—Nobili drew from his breast-pocket the parchment he had perused so attentively in the chapel—"it only needs the lady's signature. Mine is already affixed. Let me tell you, and through you the Marchesa Guinigi, without that deed—and my own free will," he added in a lower tone, "neither you nor she would have forced me here to this marriage; I came because I considered some reparation was due to a young lady whose name has been cruelly outraged. Else I would have died first! If the lady I have made my wife desires, to make any amends to me for the insults that have been heaped upon me through her, let her set me free from an odious thralldom. I will not so much as look upon one who has permitted herself to be made the tool of others to deceive me. She has been treacherous to me in business—she has been treacherous to me in love—no, I will never look upon her again! Live with her?—by God! never!"
The pent-up wrath within him, the maddening sense of wrong, blaze out. Count Nobili is now striding up and down the room insensible to any thing for the moment but the consciousness of his own outraged feelings.
As Count Nobili waxed furious, Maestro Guglielmi grew calm. His busy brain was concocting all sorts of expedients. He leaned his chin upon his hands. His false smile gave place to a sardonic grin, as he watched Nobili—marked his well-set, muscular figure, his easy movements, the graceful curve of his head and neck, his delicate, regular features, his sunny complexion. But Nobili's face without a smile was shorn of its chief charm: that smile, so bright in itself, brought brightness to others.
"A fine, generous fellow, a proper husband for any lady in Italy, whoever she may be," was Guglielmi's reflection, as he watched him. "The young countess has taste. He is not such a fool either, but desperately provoking—like all boys with large fortunes, desperately provoking—and dogged as a mule. But for all that he is a fine, generous-hearted fellow. I like him—I like him for refusing to be forced against his will. I would not live with an angel on such terms." At this point Guglielmi's eyes exhibited a succession of fireworks; his long teeth gleamed, and he smiled a stealthy smile. "But he must be tamed, this youth—he must be tamed. Let me see, I must take him on another tack—on the flank this time, and hit him hard!"
Nobili has now ceased striding up and down the room. He stands facing the window. His ear has caught the barking of several dogs. A minute after, one rushes past the window—raised only by a few stone steps from the ground—formidable beast with long white hair, tail on end, ears erect, open-mouthed, fiery-eyed—this is Argo—Argo let loose, famished—maddened by Adamo's devices—Argo rushing at full speed and tearing up a shower of gravel with his huge paws. Barking horribly, he disappears into the shrubs. Argo's bark is taken up by the other dogs from all round the house in various keys. Juno the lurcher gives a short low yelp; the rat-terrier Tuzzi, a shrill, grating whine like a rusty saw; the bull-terrier, a deep growl. In the solemn silence of the untrodden Apennines that rise around, the loud voices of the dogs echo from cliff to cliff boom down into the abyss, and rattle there like thunder. The night-birds catch up the sound and screech; the frightened bats circle round wildly.
At this moment heavy footsteps creak upon the gravel under the shadow of the wall. A low whistle passes through the air, and the dogs disappear.
"A savage pack, like their mistress," was Count Nobili's thought as his eyes tried to pierce into the growing darkness.
Night is coming on. Heavy vapors creep up from the earth and obscure the air. Darker and denser clouds cover the heavens. Black shadows gather within the room. The bed looms out from the lighter walls like a funeral catafalque.
A few pale gleams of light still linger on the horizon. These fall upon Nobili's figure as he stands framed in the window. As the waning light strikes upon his eyes, a presentiment of danger comes over him. These dogs, these footsteps—what do they mean?
Again a wild desire seizes him to be riding full speed on the mountain-road to Lucca, to feel the fresh night air upon his heated brow; the elastic spring of his good horse under him, each stride bearing him farther from his enemies. He is about to leap out and fly, when the warning hand of the lawyer is laid upon his arm. Nobili shakes him off, but Guglielmi permits himself no indication of offense. Dejection and grief are depicted on his countenance. He shakes his head despondingly; his manner is dangerously fawning. He, too, has heard the dogs, the footsteps, and the whistle. He has drawn his own conclusions.