Page:Manzoni - The Betrothed, 1834.djvu/259

 have been an insurmountable difficulty to others was to him an instrument of success. We have related how the unhappy signora once lent an ear to his discourse, and the reader may have surmised that this was not the last time; it was only the first step in the path of abomination and blood. The same voice which then addressed her, become imperious through crime, now imposed on her the sacrifice of the innocent girl who had been intrusted to her care.

The proposition appeared frightful to Gertrude; to lose Lucy in any manner would have seemed to her a misfortune, a punishment; and to deprive herself of her with criminal perfidy, to add to her crimes by dealing treacherously with the confiding girl, was to take away the only gleam of virtuous enjoyment which had shone upon her mysterious and wicked career. She tried every method to avoid obedience; every method, except the only infallible one, that was in her power. Crime is a severe and inflexible master, against whom we are strong only when we entirely rebel. Gertrude could not resolve on that, and obeyed.

The day agreed on came; the hour approached; Gertrude, alone with Lucy, bestowed on her more caresses than ordinary, which the poor girl returned with increasing tenderness, as the lamb licks the hand of the shepherd who entices it without the fold into the murderous power of the butcher who there awaits it.

"I want you to do me a great favour; many are ready to obey me, but there is none but yourself whom I can trust. I must speak immediately on an affair of great importance, which I will relate to you some other time, to the superior of the capuchins, who brought you hither, my dear Lucy; but no one must know that I have sent for him. I rely on you to carry a secret message"

Lucy was astonished at such a request, and alleged her reasons for declining to perform it; without her mother! without a companion! in a solitary road! in a strange country! But Gertrude, instructed in an infernal school, showed great astonishment and displeasure at her refusal, after having been loaded with so many benefits; she affected to treat her excuses as frivolous. "In open day! a short distance! a road that Lucy had travelled a few