uigi as my
surname, and so evade them."

"Go, go, Luigi!" cried Ginevra. "No, stay; I must go with you. So long
as you are in my father's house you have nothing to fear; but the moment
you leave it, take care! you will go from danger to danger. My father
has two Corsicans in his service, and if he does not lie in wait to kill
you, they will."

"Ginevra," he said, "this feud, does it exist between you and me?"

The girl smiled sadly and bowed her head. Presently she raised it, and
said, with a sort of pride:--

"Oh, Luigi, our love must be pure and sincere, indeed, to give me
strength to tread the path I am about to enter. But it involves a
happiness that will last throughout our lives, will it not?"

Luigi answered by a smile, and pressed her hand.

Ginevra comprehended that true love could despise all vulgar
protestations at such a moment. This calm and restrained expression
of his feelings foreshadowed, in some sense, their strength and their
duration.

The destiny of the pair was then and there decided. Ginevra foresaw a
cruel struggle, but the idea of abandoning Luigi--an idea which may have
floated in her soul--vanished completely. His forever, she dragged him
suddenly, with a desperate sort of energy, from her father's house,
and did not leave him till she saw him reach the house where Servin had
engaged a modest lodging.

By the time she reached home, Ginevra had attained to that serenity
which is caused by a firm resolution; no sign in her manner betrayed
uneasiness. She turned on her father and mother, whom she found in the
act of sitting down to dinner, a glance of exceeding gentleness devoid
of hardihood. She saw that her mother had been weeping; the redness of
those withered eyelids shook her heart, but she hid her emotion. No one
touched the dinner which was served to them. A horror of food is one of
the chief symptoms which reveal a great crisis in life. All three rose
from table without having addressed a single word to one another.

When Ginevra had placed herself between her father and mother in the
great and gloomy salon, Piombo tried to speak, but his voice failed him;
he tried to walk, but he had no strength in his legs. He returned to his
seat and rang the bell.

"Pietro," he said, at last, to the footman, "light the fire; I am cold."

Ginevra trembled, and looked at her father anxiously. The struggle
within him must have been horrible, for his face was distorted. Ginevra
knew the exte