The soldier ran down the street in haste, and Ramiro turned his eyes from the pained and anxious countenances around him; but it was only to meet a sight that affected him still more.
"Oh! I would have been spared this!" he cried, as Leonora rushed toward him and cast herself at his feet.
"My lord--my father!" she exclaimed, stretching out her hands towards him, "spare him! spare him! He is innocent--you know he is innocent! Lose not a moment--send down the pardon--some gentleman run down. He pardons him. Be quick! oh be quick!"
"Hold, on your lives!" cried Ramiro d'Orco, in a voice of thunder. "Hence, girl. Take her away--some one take her away. He dies, if I live!"
"Then hear, Ramiro d'Orco!" cried Leonora, "send me to the block instead of him. I poisoned her more surely than he did. See, here is the poison. I am ready; take me to the block! I confess the crime. But hear me, lords and gentlemen all: Lorenzo Visconti is innocent--innocent of the death of his poor wife--innocent of the neglect and insult my father thinks he offered me, and for which, in truth, he does him to death; innocent of all offence, as this hard parent will find when we are both in our still graves."
"Ha! what is that?" exclaimed her father, gazing at her; "she raves--take her away!"
"I rave not. It is all true," cried Leonora; "so help me God, as he has explained all. Will you send the pardon now? Oh, speak! speak!"
"It is too late," said Ramiro, in a low and gloomy tone, pointing with his hand down the street.
Leonora turned and gazed, with her eyes almost starting from her head. Four men were carrying a bier with something stretched upon it, and a cloak thrown over all. Leonora sprung upon her feet, uttered a shriek that rung through the whole square, and then fell senseless on the ground.
A brief lapse of forgetfulness came to that wrung and agonized heart, and then she opened her eyes, but she closed them quickly again. She fancied she was in a dream. What was it she thought she saw? The face of Lorenzo Visconti bending over her; French soldiers all armed; the banners of the Church mingled with others she knew not. Oh, it was a dream--a deceitful dream!