“The danger, perhaps?” doubtfully whispered a dark-haired girl, who watched beside the turret-stair.
“Danger! When had Lorenzo di Vasari gone back for danger!”
“Sickness?”
“Why, sickness?——Yet, no—no—he was not sick—it was not that!—Once more, Giuletta—for mercy! How sayest thou! All is silent still? Then he would not come! He was false—faithless—perjured—fled to his new minion—wedded to another!—Why, rather than that, let him have died—have perished! by plague—by flood—by fire—by knife or poison! Was not she, the Countess, dying—(and did she shrink to die?)—dying for the love she had borne him? Let her behold him lifeless! Mark his last gasp! Hear his last sigh! Know that he died without help—without hope—but let her not know him the husband of Perline di Francavilla!”
Following on that last word, like its response or echo—raised, spell-like, by its utterance—a distant foot is heard upon the winding turret-stair. Light as it falls, the Countess’s ear has caught and recognised it! Low as it treads, the rush with which it comes is that of lightning. In one moment more the tapestried door has flown open—a cavalier, hurried and travel-worn, flings himself by the Countess’s bedside. The door is closed; the attendant has left the chamber; the Knight has redeemed his faith; and the lady and her lover—it is for the last time—are to be alone together!
The Chevalier di Vasari held his lady’s hand clasped within both his own; and he so held it long, and spoke not. He pressed it to his burning forehead, not to his lips; his face was buried in the drapery of the bed by which he knelt; and his sobs, although repressed with pain, were deep and audible. Justly condemned by his mistress, or unjustly; false to his vows, or true; he was at least no lover of profession, no idler, who gained and flung away for pride: but what he felt, he spoke right on, whether from the heart or from the senses (which are nearer akin, perhaps, in the purest passion, than philosophers will admit); and if he had changed—why was it, but because, in love, there can be no such pledge as “Constancy?” because men can hold no control over an emotion which is as involuntary as their laughter or their tears;—and because he who promises, but for one day, the continuance of his passion to a woman—if he were to promise the continuance of life, might as well have the power to perform!
And if Love, as sure he is so, be the child of accident—of situation; warmed in this hour, and cherished by that which chills and wastes him in the next; aided to-day by absence, which makes that precious which possession held too cheap; to-morrow, triumphing by that very presence which overcomes, when at a distance we might have denied;—if these be truths—as sure they are—take one truth more, and let who can gainsay it—love, born amidst zephyrs, lives but in a storm! Flowers may charm; but these have thorns; which, cease to pique, and he will cease to worship them. Pain is his food, of life—far more than pleasure! mistresses or wives, the women who goad us to distraction are those ever from whom we have the hardest task to part. Di Vasari was of that age, and of that temperament, in which absence was likely to weaken a passion rather than increase it. We sigh to Eugenia of Sophia’s coldness, and end in forgetting Sophia altogether! But the heart that wanders is not lost for ever. He had quitted Florence with unwillingness—in horror—almost in despair. Quitted it only, at last, because, unhappily, his stay might have aggravated those dangers which were past his hope to aid. And was it in man, now, that he could look upon that beautiful form—that form which he had so loved, so worshipped—and fancy but the possibility of its destruction—of its decay! See those dark eyes, into which he had so often gazed for hope and happiness—their lustre yet undimmed, but shining over a pallid cheek, and soon to shine no more! That long black hair which flowed in ringlets down a neck so full and white! Those fair round arms and polished throat—these are charms to live, and still have power, long after the transient red and white, which charms the first observer, is familiar! Could he behold his mistress—so young and beauteous still—so soon to be resigned for ever—now before him, and not forget that any other woman lived, on whom he ever had bestowed a thought? not feel that, without her life—her love—her safety—life—all the world—to him, would be no longer worth possessing?
The Countess gazed upon her lover as he knelt; and she, too, for a long space, gazed without speaking; for with her, far less than even with Di Vasari, was there that full indulgence of grief which soothes and satisfies the heart: but her thoughts were those of doubt—and fancied wrong—and wounded pride—and passion scorned or slighted. Fierce as had been the paroxysms which that day had convulsed and shaken her; bodily pain, and mental suffering; her pride still towered over all; her beauty showed untainted! Scorning death in his triumph; hating his approach, yet smiling on it; never more carefully than in that hour—her last of life—had the Countess’s toilet been adjusted. Her force of mind, and feverish heat of purpose, rose even above the anodynes which gave her a temporary release from personal suffering. Excited as she already was by passion, almost to frenzy, the very narcotics which should have deadened the brain’s action, turned to stimulants, and served only to add new fury to its purpose. Her cheek had lost its tint of freshness. Her eyes, that glistened with tears repressed, had something of wildness in their expression. And her lips had faded from their ruby hue. But, other than this, her beauty was still uninjured; all her features were full and animated; it was scarce possible to contemplate her as a being who in a few hours should cease to move—to think—to have intent—existence.
At length the Countess spoke. Her hand lay passive in her lover’s grasp. But it was cold—damp—and nerveless—trembling;—it suffered, not returned, his ardent pressure. “You would see me once more then, Lorenzo?” she said; and her words were uttered with pain and difficulty. For though her features remained unmoved, her eyes were blind with tears; and the tone of her voice was more terrible in its hollow, wilful steadiness, than if she had at once resigned the contest, and given way to the storm of grief that overwhelmed her.—“You have left Arezzo, and safety, and your new bride that shall be, to watch the last moments of one who can now no more be worth your thinking of; but who, whatever may be the faults she has to answer for, dies for one only, Lorenzo,—the fault of having loved you!”
The Chevalier’s cheek was paler even than that of the Countess. His voice was drowned with sobs—he could not speak—the words choked him in their utterance. He lifted his face from the velvet covering in which it had lain buried—he clasped his hands together;—the hand of the Countess fell from his grasp.—“And is there then,” at last he said, “oh God!—is there then, Angiolina, indeed no hope?”