A new spirit had entered into her with her love for Lorenzo Visconti, and she answered no longer with the timidity, nay, with that fear which at one time she felt in speaking to her father.
"Lorenzo must be ill, my father," she said. "I am told that there is a courier going to France, and I long to write by him. I feel it would be better, wiser, to have no secrets from my father--to let him know my whole heart and all my acts. I, therefore, will not write without your permission."
"Write--write, my child," said Ramiro d'Orco, with a more beaming look than usually came upon his countenance. "God grant that this young man's disease may be more of the body than the mind. His conduct is strange, but yet I will lose no chance. I cannot write to him, but you may. Woman's love may pardon what man's harder nature must revenge. Perhaps this letter may be explained. God grant it!"
Leonora retired to her chamber and wrote:
"My spirit is very much troubled, dear Lorenzo"--such were the words--"You promised to return in two months after we parted. Five have passed; and you have neither come nor written. I know you are ill. I entertain no other fear; but my father, I can see, has doubts that have never entered into my mind. I beseech you remove them. A messenger has been waiting for you at Florence to explain to you that my father has become Lord of Imola, and that I have joined him here. It is probable that this good man, Father Peter, may not be able to remain waiting for you any longer, and I therefore write to let you know where you will find me. That you will seek me as soon as it is possible, or write to me if it is impossible for you to seek me soon, no doubt exists in the mind of your
Leonora."
She folded and sealed the letter, and took it at once to her father; but Ramiro remarked on the green floss silk with which it was tied.
"Take some other colour, my child," he said; and, stretching across the table, he threw before her a small bundle of those silks with which it was customary to attach a seal to letters in that day. "There is crimson," he said; "that will suit better for the occasion."
There seemed a meaning lurking in his speech which Leonora did not like; but she obeyed quietly, and was about to leave the letter re-sealed with him, when he suddenly said--
"Stay! better put in the corner, 'To be shown to the Reverend Father Peter, at the Casa Morelli, Florence, in case the Signor Lorenzo Visconti should have arrived.' If he be there, it would be useless to send the letter on to France; if not there, Father Peter will forward it."