oppose him; but she had made known to Ottaviano
her intention of not giving him up, of waiting patiently till events
should take a more favorable turn. She seemed hardly aware, the Count
said with a sigh, that the means of escape lay in her own hands; that
she was of age, and had a right to sell the picture, and to marry
without asking her father's consent. Meanwhile her suitor spared no
pains to keep himself before her, to remind her that he, too, was
waiting and would never give her up.

Doctor Lombard, who suspected the young man of trying to persuade
Sybilla to sell the picture, had forbidden the lovers to meet or to
correspond; they were thus driven to clandestine communication, and had
several times, the Count ingenuously avowed, made use of the doctor's
visitors as a means of exchanging letters.

"And you told the visitors to ring twice?" Wyant interposed.

The young man extended his hands in a deprecating gesture. Could Mr.
Wyant blame him? He was young, he was ardent, he was enamored! The
young lady had done him the supreme honor of avowing her attachment, of
pledging her unalterable fidelity; should he suffer his devotion to be
outdone? But his purpose in writing to her, he admitted, was not merely
to reiterate his fidelity; he was trying by every means in his power to
induce her to sell the picture. He had organized a plan of action; every
detail was complete; if she would but have the courage to carry out
his instructions he would answer for the result. His idea was that she
should secretly retire to a convent of which his aunt was the Mother
Superior, and from that stronghold should transact the sale of the
Leonardo. He had a purchaser ready, who was willing to pay a large sum;
a sum, Count Ottaviano whispered, considerably in excess of the young
lady's original inheritance; once the picture sold, it could, if
necessary, be removed by force from Doctor Lombard's house, and his
daughter, being safely in the convent, would be spared the painful
scenes incidental to the removal. Finally, if Doctor Lombard were
vindictive enough to refuse his consent to her marriage, she had only to
make a sommation respectueuse, and at the end of the prescribed delay no
power on earth could prevent her becoming the wife of Count Ottaviano.

Wyant's anger had fallen at the recital of this simple romance. It was
absurd to be angry with a young man who confided his secrets to the
first stranger he met in the streets, and plac