, this
it is which has doubtless injured you in her esteem. Too much reason has
she had to cherish the antipathy! Betrayed into a secret marriage by an
Englishman who represented himself as of a race noble as her own, she
was deserted and abandoned by him afterwards. This is the terrible
mystery which I never dared to tell you, and which led us to a life of
seclusion at Massa. This is the source of that hatred towards all of a
nation which she must ever associate with the greatest misfortunes of
her life! And from this unhappy event was she led to make me take that
solemn oath that I spoke of, never to link my fortunes with one of that
hated land."

"But you told me that you had not made the pledge," said he, wildly.

"Nor had I then, Sebastian; but since we last met, worked on by
solicitation, I could not resist; tortured by a narrative of such
sorrows as I never listened to before, I yielded, and gave my promise."

"It matters little to _me!_" said he, gloomily; "a barrier the more or
the less can be of slight moment when there rolls a wide sea between us!
Had you ever loved me, such a pledge had been impossible."

"It was you yourself, Sebastian, told me we were never to meet again,"
rejoined she.

"Better that we had never done so!" muttered he. "Nay, perhaps I am
wrong," added he, fiercely; "this meeting may serve to mark how little
there ever was between us!"

"Is this cruelty affected, Sebastian, or is it real?"

"It cannot be cruel to echo your own words. Besides," said he, with an
air of mockery in the words, "she who lives in this gorgeous palace,
surrounded with all the splendors of life, can have little complaint to
make against the cruelty of fortune!"

"How unlike yourself is all this!" cried she. "You of all I have ever
seen or known, understood how to rise above the accidents of fate,
placing your happiness and your ambitions in a sphere where mere
questions of wealth never entered. What can have so changed you?"

Before he could reply, a sudden movement in the crowd beneath attracted
the attention of both, and a number of persons who had filled the
terrace now passed hurriedly into the _salons_, where, to judge from
the commotion, an event of some importance had occurred. Ida lost not
a moment in entering, when she was met by the words: "It is she, Nina
herself is ill; some mask--a stranger, it would seem--has said something
or threatened something." In fact, she had been carried to her room i