give it a just return?"

"Alas! no," answered Nina. "He has, I fear, sacrificed himself to me
from that dreadful night when I left my native home, confused,
bewildered, and little dreaming that it was to be for ever. But I do
not detain him; if he wishes to return he may do so."

"He came with you, and without you he will not go back," observed Ada.

"While my father lived, I would have returned to see him, at the risk of
my life--at the risk of the displeasure of one dearer than life; but now
that he is no more, no earthly power should make me quit my husband."

"But your brother has doubts of the truth of the report of your father's
death, and would still induce you to accompany him," said Ada.

"What! and allow you to remain?" whispered Nina, her fears, in a moment,
rushing back to the baneful course from which they had been diverted.
"No, lady, that were folly too great even for me to commit."

Ada saw that she was touching on dangerous ground.

"Indeed, again you wrong me, Nina," she said, tenderly pressing her
hand. "I did not believe my intentions could be so misconstrued; but I
will not mention a subject which is so painful to you."

"There are few which are not, lady," returned Nina, again appeased; "for
the very language we speak reminds me of the home I have lost, the
misery I have caused--it reminds me that I may be stigmatised as a
murderess; that the death of the best, the kindest of fathers, may be
laid to my charge; and often would such thoughts drive me to madness,
and to seek a speedy end to all my misery from the summit of yonder
cliff; but for what I have lost, I have gained a prize which recompenses
me for all--the love of one without which death would have been welcome;
a love I value more than all the earth's brightest treasure. They say
the maidens in your country are calm and cold as the snow on the
Appenines, and it were in vain, therefore, for you, lady, to attempt to
conceive what that love is. He might abandon me--he might forget me--he
might spurn me, but still I should love him, though I slew him for his
perfidy; and should die happily on the tomb to which I had consigned
him. Then do not speak to me again of quitting him;--he is my world,
and all else I have abandoned for him."

Ada, after this, did not again attempt to renew the subject--indeed,
pirate though he was, Zappa, she remembered, was, there existed every
reason to believe, the young Italian's husband; and though u