ncing, 'and if any one finds it ill, let him
speak.'

"The unknown, who had appeared to pay no attention to the host's
question, quickly raised her head on hearing the count's voice. 'I
live,' she cried with enthusiasm, 'I shall live!' and she turned toward
him with a radiant face. But as she looked at him her cheeks paled and
her brow darkened with a sombre cloud. 'Why have you taken this
disguise?' she said in a severe tone, pointing to his uniform.

"'It is not a disguise,' he answered: 'it is--' He could say no more: a
terrible look from the unknown had as if petrified him. She regarded him
some seconds in silence, then let fall from her eyes two large tears.
Franz would have rushed toward her, but she did not give him time.

"'Follow me,' she said in a hollow voice: then rapidly breaking through
the astonished crowd, she left the hall, followed by Franz.

"Arrived at the foot of the palace steps, she leaped into her gondola,
and told Franz to enter after her and be seated. When he had done so he
looked about him, and seeing no gondolier, 'Who will row us?' he asked.

"'I,' she answered, seizing the oar with a vigorous hand.

"'Rather let me.'

"'No: Austrian hands do not know the oar of Venice;' and giving a
powerful impulse to the gondola, she sent it like an arrow into the
canal. In a few moments they were far from the palace. Franz, who
expected from the unknown an explanation of her anger, was astonished
and unhappy at seeing her keep silence. 'Where are we going?' he said
after a moment's reflection.

"'Where destiny wills us to go,' she replied in a terrible voice, and as
if these words had reanimated her anger she began to row still more
vigorously. The gondola, obeying the impulse of her powerful hand,
seemed to fly over the water. Franz saw the foam dash with dazzling
rapidity along the sides of the boat, and the ships on their course flee
behind them like clouds borne away by the whirlwind. Soon the darkness
grew deeper, the wind rose, and the young man heard nothing but the
seething of the waves and the hissing of the air through his hair, and
saw nothing before him but the tall white figure of his companion in the
midst of the shadows. Standing at the stern, her hands on the oar, her
hair scattered over her shoulders, and her long, white garments
abandoned in disorder to the wind, she less resembled a woman than the
spirit of shipwrecks playing upon the stormy sea.

"'Where are we?' cried Fran