She often gazed with silent emotion upon his noble gentle features, as he lay there with closed eyes, when his wounded chest heaved with convulsive breathing. For her he had gone to meet death. Was he the victim of a lie? Her passionate love was indeed truth, although all else might be deception.
She had but one alternative, the fearful alternative of losing him for ever, or of conquering him by impious defiance of law and custom.
She was an Italian; she possessed fiery blood, and the language which passion spoke, even if it drove her out into the boundless, was to her almost irresistible.
Grown up in a stage world, in which adventures are represented before the footlights and experienced behind the scenes, she had no true comprehension of the limits of respectable life; she was inclined in it to perceive a restraint over which the laws of the heart had the right to triumph. Brigandage lives in the blood of Italians; there is also a brigantaggio of the heart, which breaks into the sanctuaries of the law with daring boldness, and deems the power of life higher than that which only seems to be a lifeless form, a written paragraph. What is unworthy, let it be authorised by earth or heaven, appears to be a fetter, to break which, is esteemed an act of heroism, even although it may be deemed a crime in the eyes of the world.
But she knew that Blanden thought differently; here in the North the law was a great power; he possessed a knightly mind, which never thinks of deception. She could only be really his if she took all the daring upon herself alone, converting a degrading secret into a new heavy load of guilt.
And had not the worst happened already, and from no fault of hers? Had he not suffered heavy pain for the sake of the impossible, which could only become possible by impudent deception, and unbroken silence? Should she not now, if she confessed all, prepare him a certain painful disappointment, which hereafter only hostile chance could bring upon him?
Who guarantees any long endurance to happiness? She would enjoy it, even if the chasm which yawns behind every bliss were nearer to her and deeper than it usually is. But she could only obtain and enjoy this felicity with heart-throbbings and anguish of conscience, condemned to everlasting anxiety, dependent upon the good-will, the whims of a despicable man; this roused her heart against fate, robbed her of sleep, and dreams full of wild pictures of horror drove her terrified mind hither and thither in alarm.
Ever again her conscience rebelled, and urged her to a confession that would free her; ever again she repressed it firmly, as the huntsman restrains the dog that will frighten away the game of which he is secure.
Beate was calmer, she had given an account of her visit to Baluzzi, she would decidedly not give up all hope, and thought he would still allow himself to be persuaded to become a subject of that country; but Giulia cried in supreme excitement--
"No, no, the disgrace of my life must remain in everlasting obscurity, how foolish to wish to drag it into court; it was a thought that could only come to me in utter helplessness. Then, too, Blanden would be lost to me; would there be anything more degrading for me, than to have to acknowledge that man before all the world? Only in deepest secrecy can my welfare lie."