“The evidence against you will be overwhelming,” she gave him to understand: then with an air of the most heart appealing supplication, she added, “Escape, dearest Fernand, for my sake!”
“But I should be compelled to fly from Florence—and wouldst thou accompany me?”
She shook her head mournfully.
“Then I will remain here—in this dungeon! If my innocence be proved, I may yet hope to call the sister of the Count of Riverola my wife: if I be condemned——”
He paused:—for he knew that, even if he were sentenced to death, he could not die,—that some power, of which, however, he had only a vague notion, would rescue him,—that the compact, which gave him renewed youth and a long life on the fatal condition of his periodical transformation into a horrid monster, must be fulfilled; and, though he saw not—understood not how all this was to be, still he knew that it would happen if he should really be condemned!
Nisida was not aware of the motive which had checked her lover as he was conveying to her his sense of the dread alternatives before him; and she hastened to intimate to him the following thought:—
“You would say that if you be condemned, you will know how to meet death as becomes a brave man. But think of me—of Nisida, who loves you!”
“Would you continue to love a man branded as a murderer?”
“I should only think of you as my own dear Fernand!”
He shook his head—as much as to say, “It cannot be!”—and then once more embraced her fondly—for he beheld, in her anxiety for his escape, only a proof of her ardent affection.