“Signor! you are describing the Lady Nisida, my sister!” exclaimed Francisco, struck with astonishment at the fidelity of the portrait thus verbally drawn.
“Your sister, my lord!” cried Wagner. “Then has Dame Margaretha deceived Agnes in representing the Lady Nisida to be rather a beauty of the cold north than of the sunny south.”
“Dame Margaretha!” said Francisco; “do you allude, signor, to the mother of my late father’s confidential dependent, Antonio?”
“The same,” was the answer. “It was at Dame Margaretha’s house that your father placed my sister Agnes, who has resided there nearly four years.”
“But wherefore have you made those inquiries relative to the Lady Nisida?” inquired Francisco.
“I will explain the motive with frankness,” responded Wagner.
He then related to the young count all those particulars relative to the mysterious lady and Agnes, with which the reader is already acquainted.
“There must be some extraordinary mistake—some strange error, signor, in all this,” observed Francisco. “My poor sister is, as you seem to be aware, so deeply afflicted that she possesses not faculties calculated to make her aware of that amour which even I, who possess those faculties in which she is deficient, never suspected, and concerning which no hint ever reached me, until the whole truth burst suddenly upon me last night at the funeral of my sire. Moreover, had accident revealed to Nisida the existence of the connection between my father and your sister, signor, she would have imparted the discovery to me, such is the confidence and so great is the love that exists between us. For habit has rendered us so skillful and quick in conversing with the language of the deaf and dumb, that no impediment ever exists to the free interchange of our thoughts.”
“And yet, if the Lady Nisida had made such a discovery, her hatred of Agnes may be well understood,” said Wagner; “for her ladyship must naturally look upon my sister as the partner of her father’s weakness—the dishonored slave of his passions.”
“Nisida has no secret from me,” observed the young count, firmly.