d and hid his face

"Her father," continued Baglioni, "was not restrained by natural
affection from offering up his child in this horrible manner as the
victim of his insane zeal for science; for, let us do him justice, he
is as true a man of science as ever distilled his own heart in an
alembic. What, then, will be your fate? Beyond a doubt you are selected
as the material of some new experiment. Perhaps the result is to be
death; perhaps a fate more awful still. Rappaccini, with what he calls
the interest of science before his eyes, will hesitate at nothing."

"It is a dream," muttered Giovanni to himself; "surely it is a dream."

"But," resumed the professor, "be of good cheer, son of my friend. It
is not yet too late for the rescue. Possibly we may even succeed in
bringing back this miserable child within the limits of ordinary
nature, from which her father's madness has estranged her. Behold this
little silver vase! It was wrought by the hands of the renowned
Benvenuto Cellini, and is well worthy to be a love gift to the fairest
dame in Italy. But its contents are invaluable. One little sip of this
antidote would have rendered the most virulent poisons of the Borgias
innocuous. Doubt not that it will be as efficacious against those of
Rappaccini. Bestow the vase, and the precious liquid within it, on your
Beatrice, and hopefully await the result."

Baglioni laid a small, exquisitely wrought silver vial on the table and
withdrew, leaving what he had said to produce its effect upon the young
man's mind.

"We will thwart Rappaccini yet," thought he, chuckling to himself, as
he descended the stairs; "but, let us confess the truth of him, he is a
wonderful man--a wonderful man indeed; a vile empiric, however, in his
practice, and therefore not to be tolerated by those who respect the
good old rules of the medical profession."

Throughout Giovanni's whole acquaintance with Beatrice, he had
occasionally, as we have said, been haunted by dark surmises as to her
character; yet so thoroughly had she made herself felt by him as a
simple, natural, most affectionate, and guileless creature, that the
image now held up by Professor Baglioni looked as strange and
incredible as if it were not in accordance with his own original
conception. True, there were ugly recollections connected with his
first glimpses of the beautiful girl; he could not quite forget the
bouquet that withered in her grasp, and the insect that perished a