Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/106



Soon after Guido's death, Francesca discovers that her recreant lover is affianced to Lucy Alymer, the young girl in whose house she is waiting her father's return. A deep trial ensues. Evelyn is brought in as a prisoner by Cromwell's soldiers, and condemned to die. Lucy implores Francesca to save him by taking his place. Revenge has no home in the heart of this noble-minded girl; she does not hesitate, but aids him to escape; her generous heroism, however, proves fruitless; he is re-captured, and brought back to execution. Before his death he reveals to Francesca the important fact, that a close resemblance had enabled him to pass for his brother, who was still her faithful and unchanged lover. Who can tell the relief of restored confidence,—of the revived early and true affection? But Lord Avonleigh returns home, acknowledges the rightful claim of Francesca as his daughter; yet, discovering, to his dismay, that this acknowledgment will legally disinherit his favourite son, he proposes to his newly-recovered child to pass for the daughter of an old friend. Francesca generously renounces her claims, "though none could have felt more keenly than herself what she resigned; from her childhood the pride of ancestry, in its noblest and most imaginative feeling, had been cultivated by her grandfather's narratives of the heroic deeds of the noble house of the Carraras." Lord Avonleigh's son is suddenly killed, and his lordship, impressed with a sense of retributive justice, avows Francesca, at her brother's funeral, to