"Yes,—and why not?" responded Frank, bitterly. "What place so fitting for the swindler,—pardon me, Financier? Is it not well that the money which by day is wrung from the hard earnings of the poor, should be spent at night in debauchery and pollution?"
"From the bank to the brothel," thought Nameless, but he did not breathe that thought aloud.
Frank silently took him by the hand, and lifted her vail. There was a magic in the pressure and the look. Holding the vail in such a manner that he might gaze freely upon her countenance, while it was hidden from all other eyes, she looked at him long and steadfastly.
"Do you regret your pledge?" she said, measuring every word.
"Regret!" he echoed,—for the touch, the look, the voluptuous atmosphere of her very presence, made him forget the past, the prospects of the future,—everything, but the woman whose soul shone upon him from her passionate eyes:—"Can you think it? Regret! Never!"
"Then this is my last night in the Temple. O, my heart, my soul is sick of scenes like these!" She glanced around the hall, crowded by the maskers,—"To-morrow,—" bending gently to him, until he felt her breath upon his cheek, "to-morrow,—"
"To-morrow!" echoed a strange voice; "but, my lady, I have a word to say to you to-night."
They turned with the same impulse, and beheld the unbidden speaker, in the form of a Spanish hidalgo, dressed in black velvet, richly embroidered with gold. He held his mask before his face, and a group of dark plumes shaded his brow.
She started at the voice, and Nameless felt her hand tremble in his own.
"In a moment I will join you again," she whispered to Nameless; "now, Count, I am at your service."