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Annetta glanced more keenly at the Scotchman's quiet face, and then laughed. "There is one, if you could see her! The abbess's niece. Oh, that one is beautiful. She seems to me a painted angel!" "The abbess's niece? What is she like? Let me see, the abbess is a princess, is she not?" "Yes, a great princess of the Princes of Gerano, of Casa Braccio, you know. They are always abbesses.
She was at the bedroom door in an instant, and in an instant more she was at her aunt's bedside. "Maria I am dying," said the abbess's voice faintly, as she felt the nun's arm under her head. Dalrymple heard the words, and did not hesitate as he hastily felt for something in his pocket. "Come!" cried Maria Addolorata.
Want should drive her from the world, and, to hasten her flight, the shrewd adept in reading human nature showed her in the distance the abbess's cross, and tried thereby to arouse her ambition.
Now it chanced that Isabetta, suspecting nothing of this nor being on her guard, caused her lover come thither one night, which was forthright known to those who were on the watch for this and who, whenas it seemed to them time, a good part of the night being spent, divided themselves into two parties, whereof one abode on guard at the door of her cell, whilst the other ran to the abbess's chamber and knocking at the door, till she answered, said to her, 'Up, madam; arise quickly, for we have discovered that Isabetta hath a young man in her cell. Now the abbess was that night in company with a priest, whom she ofttimes let come to her in a chest; but, hearing the nuns' outcry and fearing lest, of their overhaste and eagerness, they should push open the door, she hurriedly arose and dressed herself as best she might in the dark.
And then they led him unto the Abbess's chamber and unarmed him; and right so he was ware upon a bed lying two of his cousins, Sir Bors and Sir Lionel, and then he waked them; and when they saw him they made great joy. Sir, said Sir Bors unto Sir Launcelot, what adventure hath brought you hither, for we weened tomorn to have found you at Camelot?
There was little furniture besides the plain bed, a little table, a couple of chairs, and a tall, dark wardrobe. A grim crucifix hung above the abbess's head, on the white wall, the work of an age in which horror was familiar to the eye, and needed exaggeration to teach hardened humanity. Maria was too much occupied with her own thoughts to notice the sick woman's condition at once.
It was entered by the last door in the corridor within, and was near the abbess's apartment, which was entered from the corridor, through a small antechamber which also gave access to the vast linen-presses. The balcony, too, had a little staircase leading down into the garden.
At last they reached the door of the antechamber at the end of the corridor, through which the way led to the abbess's private apartment, consisting of three rooms. The last door on the left, as Sor Tommaso faced that which opened into the antechamber, was that of Maria Addolorata's cell.
By this time the abbess's pale hands were unclasped, and one of them pressed each knee, as she leaned far forward in her seat, with an expression of surprise and horror, her dark lips parted and all the lines of her colourless face drawn down. "Are you mad, Maria?" she asked in a low voice. "Mad? No. Why should you think me mad?" The nun turned and looked down at her aunt.
This was balm to the convalescent's wounds; for he cherished no wish more ardent than to accompany his master to the marriage altar, where Eva would give her hand to Heinz Schorlin as her faithful husband, and the abbess's last visit seemed to favour this desire.
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