en, hitherto, but a cold believer; sorrow had
never before led him aloft from earth. Old as he was, he had never
before thought as the old should think of death,--that endangered life
of the young had wakened up the careless soul of age. Zanoni whispered
to the wife, and she drew the old man quietly from the room.

"Dost thou fear to leave me an hour with thy charge, Viola? Thinkest
thou still that this knowledge is of the Fiend?"

"Ah," said Viola, humbled and yet rejoiced, "forgive me, forgive me,
signor. Thou biddest the young live and the old pray. My thoughts never
shall wrong thee more!"

Before the sun rose, Beatrice was out of danger; at noon Zanoni escaped
from the blessings of the aged pair, and as he closed the door of the
house, he found Viola awaiting him without.

She stood before him timidly, her hands crossed meekly on her bosom, her
downcast eyes swimming with tears.

"Do not let me be the only one you leave unhappy!"

"And what cure can the herbs and anodynes effect for thee? If thou canst
so readily believe ill of those who have aided and yet would serve thee,
thy disease is of the heart; and--nay, weep not! nurse of the sick, and
comforter of the sad, I should rather approve than chide thee. Forgive
thee! Life, that ever needs forgiveness, has, for its first duty, to
forgive."

"No, do not forgive me yet. I do not deserve a pardon; for even now,
while I feel how ungrateful I was to believe, suspect, aught injurious
and false to my preserver, my tears flow from happiness, not remorse.
Oh!" she continued, with a simple fervour, unconscious, in her innocence
and her generous emotions, of all the secrets she betrayed,--"thou
knowest not how bitter it was to believe thee not more good, more pure,
more sacred than all the world. And when I saw thee,--the wealthy,
the noble, coming from thy palace to minister to the sufferings of
the hovel,--when I heard those blessings of the poor breathed upon thy
parting footsteps, I felt my very self exalted,--good in thy goodness,
noble at least in those thoughts that did NOT wrong thee."

"And thinkest thou, Viola, that in a mere act of science there is so
much virtue? The commonest leech will tend the sick for his fee. Are
prayers and blessings a less reward than gold?"

"And mine, then, are not worthless? Thou wilt accept of mine?"

"Ah, Viola!" exclaimed Zanoni, with a sudden passion, that covered her
face with blushes, "thou only, methinks, on all the e