ssing her hand to his side.

"Ha! That touches you almost as closely as Benoni's insult," he said,
savagely. "I am glad of it. I repent me, and wish that I had killed
him. We met on the road, and he had the impertinence to ask me for
your hand,--I am sick of these daily proposals of marriage; and then I
inquired if he meant to insult me."

Hedwig leaned heavily on the table in an agony of suspense.

"The fellow answered that if I were insulted he was ready to fight
then and there, in the road, with my pistols. He is no coward, your
lover,--I will say that. The end of it was that I came home and he did
not."

Hedwig sank into the chair that her father had left, and hid her face.

"Oh, you have killed him!" she moaned.

"No," said the count shortly; "I did not touch a hair of his head. But
he rode away toward Trevi." Hedwig breathed again. "Are you
satisfied?" he asked, with a hard smile, enjoying the terror he had
excited.

"Oh, how cruel you are, my father!" she said, in a broken voice.

"I tell you that if I could cure you of your insane passion for this
singer fellow, I would be as cruel as the Inquisition," retorted the
count. "Now listen to me. You will not be troubled any longer with
Benoni,--the beast! I will teach him a lesson of etiquette. You need
not appear at dinner to-night. But you are not to suppose that our
residence here is at an end. When you have made up your mind to act
sensibly, and to forget the Signor Cardegna, you shall return to
society, where you may select a husband of your own position and
fortune, if you choose; or you may turn Romanist, and go into a
convent, and devote yourself to good works and idolatry, or anything
else. I do not pretend to care what becomes of you, so long as you
show any decent respect for your name. But if you persist in pining
and moaning and starving yourself, because I will not allow you to
turn dancer and marry a strolling player, you will have to remain
here. I am not such pleasant company when I am bored, I can tell you,
and my enthusiasm for the beauties of nature is probably transitory."

"I can bear anything if you will remove Benoni," said Hedwig, quietly,
as she rose from her seat. But the pressure of the iron keys that she
had hidden in her bosom gave her a strange sensation.

"Never fear," said the count, taking his hat from the table. "You
shall be amply avenged of Benoni and his foul tongue. I may not love
my daughter, but no one shall insult