ving
ventured to kiss his little cousin. Upon which he had laughingly vowed
to make her pay for it once she was his wife. Now the time had arrived
when he hoped to realize his threat. The step-mother and all those who
had most authority were on his side. They had frightened the poor old
general by predicting for him all the torments of hell, if he married
his only child to a heretic, till they had subdued and silenced him.
But whenever he looked at Bicetta his eyes filled with tears, and he
would sit for hours in his arm-chair, and sob like a child. He never
spoke to his wife for he knew that she was at the bottom of it all.

"And Beatrice?" I asked, half maddened with rage and pain.

"Ah Bicetta," replied the old man, "who can understand her! At first
when they urged her to renounce her heretic lover, she had answered: 'I
have pledged my faith to him in the sight of God, and I will keep it
though I should die for it;' so they could not persuade her. Then when
her cousin had come to pay his court to her, she had calmly told him:
'Don't trouble yourself Richino it is perfectly useless; even had I
never seen Amadeo I should never have loved you.' Then when he
attempted to take her hand and to play the gallant to her, she drew
herself up and said in the hearing of Nina: 'Miserable coward to lay
hands on another's property! Go I despise you.' She would not see him
after that yet she never sheds a tear though the marriage is decided
on, and she has quite left off begging and entreating her father, her
step-mother, or any one, even God I dare say. She no more received your
letters, than you did hers which I posted myself. It seems that the
officials at the post-office know what is expected of them when the
nephew of a cardinal wishes to carry off the bride of a foreigner.
Still it is surprising that she should have resigned herself so quickly
for she cannot possibly doubt your fidelity. Nina told me that they
threatened to shut her up in a convent if she did not marry her cousin,
and certainly a convent is not the proper place for our Bicetta, yet I
should have thought it preferable to a marriage with that man, when her
whole heart belongs to you. I for my part cannot make her out, and my
daughter too is in a perpetual state of amazement."

So the good old man rambled on without venturing to look at me, whilst
I lay completely stunned on one of the chairs opposite the chimney. It
was the same in which we had sat our hands c