ither resist nor scream."

Her heart was too full to speak; but she bowed her head in acquiescence.
Lucrezia moved to go on. "How is my life to be taken? By the dagger? By
blows?"

"By neither--by nothing. Not a hair of your head will be touched."

"Ah! I might have guessed. It is by poison."

"It will be taken by _nothing_, I tell you. Why do you not listen to me?"

"You speak in riddles," said Gina, faintly. "But I will bear my fate,
whatever it may be."

"And in silence? _He_ asks it by your mutual love."

"All, all, for his sake," she answered. "Tell him, as I have loved, so
will I obey him to the last."

Lucrezia walked on, and Gina followed. She saw and understood the manner
of her death, but, faithful to the imagined wish of her lover, she uttered
neither remonstrance nor cry. The clock was upon the stroke of one, when
smothered groans of fear and anguish told that her punishment had begun;
but no louder sound broke the midnight silence, or carried the appalling
deed to the inhabitants of the castle. An hour passed before all was
completed: they were long in doing their deed of vengeance; and, when it
was over, Gina Montani had been removed from the world forever.

"Madame, she is gone!" was the salutation of Lucrezia, her teeth
chattering, and her face the hue of a corpse, when she entered the chamber
of her mistress.

The Lady Adelaide had not retired to rest. She was pacing her apartment in
unutterable misery. The social conditions of life, its forms and objects,
were to her as nothing since her terrible awaking to reality.

Morning had dawned before the return of the Lord of Visinara. He was
fatigued both in body and mind, and, throwing himself upon a couch, slept
for some hours. And he probably would have rested longer, had not an
unusual disturbance and commotion in his household aroused him. They were
telling a strange tale: one that, for the moment, drove the life-blood
away from his heart. It was, that the wicked dealings of Gina Montani with
Satan had been brought to light on the previous day. The holy Father
Anselmo had taxed her with her guilt, and she had openly confessed all
without reserve; and that the Evil One had appeared in the night, and had
run away with her--a just reward.

In those times, a reputed visit of the devil in _propria persona_ would
have been likely to obtain more credence than it could in these: but it
would probably be going too far to say that the Lord of Visinara