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186 for I will not tell you. Enough! Time presses now for your answer: it cannot long be delayed. Before the night of the third day from this, all choice will be forbid you!

"But," said Glyndon, still doubting and suspicious, "but why this haste?"

"Man, you are not worthy of her when you ask me. All I can tell you here, you should have known yourself. This ravisher, this man of will, this son of the old Viconti, unlike you — steadfast, resolute, earnest even in his crimes — never relinquishes an object. But one passion controls his lust — it is his avarice. The day after his attempt on Viola, his uncle, the Cardinal, from whom he has large expectations of land and gold, sent for him, and forbade him, on pain of forfeiting all the possessions which his schemes already had parcelled out, to pursue with dishonourable designs one whom the Cardinal had heeded and loved from childhood. This is the cause of his present pause from his pursuit. While we speak, the cause expires. Before the hand of the clock reaches the hour of noon, the Cardinal will be no more. At this very moment thy friend, Jean Nicot, is with the Prince di."

"He! wherefore?"

"To ask what dower shall go with Viola Pisani, the morning that she leaves the palace of the Prince."

"And how do you know all this?"

" Fool! I tell thee again, because a lover is a watcher by night and day; because love never sleeps when danger menaces the beloved one!"