Page:Francesca Carrara 2.pdf/145

142 my veins as that ghastly and bewildered countenance: the large eyes were so glazed, so wild; and the red circle left by weeping was the only vestige of colour, for lip and cheek were both deadly white; the features, too, were shrunken and older—it was as if years had passed by since I saw her last. I took a vacant seat in silence, when I felt a little hand put into mine, and a childish voice whisper, 'Nobody speaks to Guido to-day; are you angry, too?' I raised the frightened child in my arms, and hid my face in his hair,—it was to nerve myself for the coming scene; now or never must the parting between Avonleigh and his Italian bride be made final as death!

"Scarcely could Carrara command himself to tell me a history I already knew so well; yet I controlled myself. I listened, I pitied, and at the close he bade God bless me for my kind heart! 'And now,' said he, 'tell us, you who have known this cruel Englishman from his birth, is there no pity in his heart? will he not return? is there no hope?'

"Beatrice raised her head: she looked at me as if on my words hung the fiat of life or death, fear and earnestness dilating her dark eyes—for an unconfessed hope had arisen within her. I met