were succeeded by
a sickly smile and broken words; and Irene was prepared, by the
presentiments of her own heart, for the stroke that fell--victory was to
her brother--his foe was crushed--Rome was free--but the lofty house
of the Colonnas had lost its stateliest props, and Adrian was gone for
ever!--She did not blame him; she could not blame her brother; each
had acted as became his several station. She was the poor sacrifice of
events and fate--the Iphigenia to the Winds which were to bear the bark
of Rome to the haven, or, it might be, to whelm it in the abyss. She was
stunned by the blow; she did not even weep or complain; she bowed to the
storm that swept over her, and it passed. For two days she neither took
food nor rest; she shut herself up; she asked only the boon of solitude:
but on the third morning she recovered as by a miracle, for on the third
morning, the following letter was left at the palace:--

"Irene,--Ere this you have learned my deep cause of grief; you feel
that to a Colonna Rome can no longer be a home, nor Rome's Tribune be
a brother. While I write these words honour but feebly supports me: all
the hopes I had formed, all the prospects I had pictured, all the love
I bore and bear thee, rush upon my heart, and I can only feel that I am
wretched. Irene, Irene, your sweet face rises before me, and in those
beloved eyes I read that I am forgiven,--I am understood; and dearly as
I know thou lovest me, thou wouldst rather I were lost to thee, rather I
were in the grave with my kinsmen, than know I lived the reproach of my
order, the recreant of my name. Ah! why was I a Colonna? why did Fortune
make me noble, and nature and circumstance attach me to the people? I am
barred alike from love and from revenge; all my revenge falls upon
thee and me. Adored! we are perhaps separated for ever; but, by all
the happiness I have known by thy side--by all the rapture of which I
dreamed--by that delicious hour which first gave thee to my gaze, when
I watched the soft soul returning to thine eyes and lip--by thy first
blushing confession of love--by our first kiss--by our last farewell--I
swear to be faithful to thee to the last. None other shall ever chase
thine image from my heart. And now, when Hope seems over, Faith becomes
doubly sacred; and thou, my beautiful, wilt thou not remember me? wilt
thou not feel as if we were the betrothed of Heaven? In the legends of
the North we are told of the knight who, returni