“La bella Inglese! who may she be?” inquired the young sculptor, somewhat agitated.
“A lovely girl, who only appeared in Florence as you left it. Lanzi informed me the resemblance was so perfect, he imagined she must know you; but she had never even heard of you till she came here.”
“And what may be her name.”
“As you seem so interested, I regret that I cannot tell you. It is so truly English that it will bear no Italian accent, therefore I cannot remember it; but find Lanzi, I expect him here to-night, and he will tell you all about her.”
The arrival of new guests, and the attention of the countess called for from himself, the sculptor hastily turned, as in the act of seeking the individual she had named. He had not advanced many yards when he started violently, and with a sudden impulse retreated into a small withdrawing room, near which he had stood.
“Why shun me, Signor Castellan?” inquired a frank kind voice in English; and Lord St. Clair’s hand was extended, and, after a moment’s visible hesitation, accepted and almost convulsively pressed. “Why this long, mysterious concealment, my young friend? were there none, think you, to rejoice that you were still amongst the living?”
“Was not your lordship aware of my existence, insignificant as it is, more than a twelvemonth since? My own hand and signature were surely sufficient guarantee,” he answered, in a cold proud tone.
“Then you did write, and Annie was not deceived! Little did I know the precious intelligence contained in the packet, lost on its way to me in Russia, and the want of which, in a political view, caused me such annoyance. But why wait so long, my dear fellow, to give us tidings so many would have rejoiced to hear?”
“So many! There were more, then, to mourn me dead, than to love me living? But forgive me,” he continued, less bitterly; “Your family would have been my friends, and therefore was it I wrote to tell you that I lived.”
“But was there not one, Reginald, who deserved an earlier notice at your hands? why leave her so long to mourn you as dead, and then to learn such joyful tidings from others than yourself? The ties of early youth, of fond associations, I should have thought sufficient of themselves alone to prevent such wrong.”