f impatient at a
vindication for which he felt no interest. "Where is she?"

"She is here, my Lord," said the other, meekly.

"Here? How do you mean? Not in this house?"

"I mean that she is now in Florence."

"What, living openly here?--calling herself by my name?"

"She lives in all the splendor of immense wealth, and as openly as the
protection of Prince Midchekoff----"

"Midchekoff----Midchekoff, did you say?" cried Norwood, in a burst of
passion.

"Yes, my Lord. The haughty Russian exults in the insult that this offers
to the proudest aristocracy of Europe. This is the vengeance he exacts
for the cold disdain he experienced in London, and all that reserve that
met his attempts in English society."

"How came she here?--who sent for her?--who devised this scheme? Tell me
the whole truth, for, by Heaven, if I see you equivocate, you'll never
quit this chamber living!"

"I' ll tell you everything, truthfully and fairly," said the Abbe, with
calm dignity; and now in a few words he traced Nina's life, from the
time of her residence under Lady Hester's roof, to the moment of her
return to Florence. He omitted nothing; neither her intimacy with Jekyl
nor her passion for George Onslow. Even to the incident of the torn
dress on the night of the flight, he told all.

Norwood listened with the stern collectedness of one who had nerved
himself for a great effort. Although the blood spurted from his
compressed lips, and the nails of his fingers were buried in his hands,
he uttered never a word. At last, when D'Esmonde paused, he said,----

"And _you_ knew all this?"

"Nothing whatever of it I never chanced to see her at Florence, nor had
I the slightest suspicion of her presence there."

"Lady Hester knew it? Miss Dalton knew it?"

"I suspect not at that time."

"They know it _now_, then?"

"Who does not? Is not Florence ringing with the story? When has scandal
fallen upon such material for its malevolence? Such _dramatis personae_
as a prince, an English peer, and his peeress, are not of every day's
good fortune!"

"Be cautious how you harp on this theme, priest. In your good zeal to
hammer the metal soft you may chance to crush your own finger."

"I must be frank with you, my Lord, whatever the hazard. He would be a
sorry surgeon who, after giving his patient all the agony of the knife,
stopped short, and left the malady unextirpated."

"Come now, D'Esmonde," said Norwood, as with a strong grasp he dre