In that tone!--I cannot imitate--I cannot describe it--but it
signified----everything. What! Were we attacked by robbers? No--by
assassins--by hired assassins: and Marinelli was the last word uttered
by the dying Count, in such a tone----

MARINELLI.

In such a tone? Did any one ever hear that a tone of voice used in a
moment of terror could be a ground of accusation against an honest man?

CLAUDIA.

Oh that I could appear before a tribunal of justice, and imitate that
tone? Yet, wretch that I am! I forget my daughter. Where is she--dead
too? Was it my daughter's fault that Appiani was thy enemy?

MARINELLI.

I revere the mother's fears, and therefore pardon you.--Come, Madam.
Your daughter is in an adjoining room, and I hope her alarms are by
this time at an end. With the tenderest solicitude is the Prince
himself employed in comforting her.

CLAUDIA.

Who?

MARINELLI.

The Prince.

CLAUDIA.

The Prince! Do you really say the Prince--our Prince?

MARINELLI.

Who else should it be?

CLAUDIA.

Wretched mother that I am!--And her father, her father! He will curse
the day of her birth. He will curse me.

MARINELLI.

For Heaven's sake, Madam, what possesses you?

CLAUDIA.

It is clear. To-day--at church--before the eyes of the All-pure--in the
presence of the Eternal, this scheme of villainy began. (_To_
Marinelli.) Murderer! Mean, cowardly murderer! Thou wast not bold
enough to meet him face to face, but base enough to bribe assassins
that another might be gratified. Thou scum of murderers! honourable
murderers would not endure thee in their company. Why may I not spit
all my gall, all my rancour into thy face, thou panderer?

MARINELLI.

You rave, good woman. Moderate your voice, at any rate, and remember
where you are.

CLAUDIA.

Where I am! Remember where I am! What cares the lioness, when robbed of
her young, in whose forest she roars?

EMILIA (_within_).

Ha! My mother! I hear my mother's voice.

CLAUDIA.

Her voice? 'Tis she! She has heard me. Where