est-glade; a brown and red palace in the background,
in front lords and ladies lounging on the grass--bundles of
satin, velvet, powder, ribbons, feathers, shoulder-knots, ruffles,
long-tailed coats, and trains.

A door to the left opened. There was a sound of voices talking.

"My honored marchesa," the cavaliere was heard to say in his most
dulcet tones, "in the state of your affairs, you cannot refuse. Why
then delay? The day is passing by; Count Nobili is impatient. Let me
implore you to lose no more time."

While he was speaking the marchesa entered the sala, passing close
under the fresco of the vaguely-sailing ships upon the wall.--Can the
marchesa tell whither she is drifting more than these?--She glanced
round approvingly, then seated herself upon the sofa. Trenta
obsequiously placed a footstool at her feet, a cushion at her back.
Even the tempered light, which had been carefully prepared for her by
closing the outer wooden shutters, could not conceal how sallow and
worn she looked, nor the black circles that had gathered round her
eyes. Her dark dress hung about her as if she had suddenly grown thin;
her white hands fell listlessly at her side. The marchesa knew that
she must consent to Count Nobili's conditions. She knew she must
consent this very day. But such a struggle as this knowledge cost her,
coming so close upon the agitation of the previous night, was more
than even her iron nerves could bear. As she leaned back upon the
sofa, shading her eyes with her hand, as was her habit, she felt she
could not frame the words with which to answer the cavaliere, were it
to save her life.

As for the cavaliere, who had seated himself opposite, his plump
little person was so engulfed in an arm-chair, that nothing but
his snowy head was visible. This he waved up and down reflectively,
rattled his stick upon the floor, and glanced indignantly from time to
time at the marchesa. Why would she not answer him?

Meanwhile a little color had risen upon her cheeks. She forced herself
to sit erect, arranged the folds of her dark dress, then, in a kind of
stately silence, seemed to lend herself to listen to what Trenta might
have to urge, as though it concerned her as little as that rose-leaf
which comes floating in from the open door and drops at her feet.

"Well, marchesa, well--what is your answer?" asked Trenta, much
nettled at her assumed indifference. "Remember that Count Nobili and
Fra Pacifico have been waiting f