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"No, Giulia, he is an unprincipled spendthrift," returned the count, who never once took his eyes off his wife's countenance while he was speaking: "an unprincipled spendthrift," he added emphatically, "a man lost to all sense of honor a ruined gamester a heartless seducer a shame, a blot, a stigma upon the aristocracy of Florence; and now that you are acquainted with his real character, you will recognize the prudence of the step which I shall take to-morrow that is, to inform him that henceforth the Count and Countess of Arestino must decline to receive him again at their villa.
For, oh! if calmness, silence, and moonlight prevail without the walls of the Arestino villa, yet within there be hearts agitated by passions and emotions, from which the gentle genius of slumber shrinks back aghast.
The moment it was opened, the sbirri and the citizen entered; and the lieutenant, turning shortly round upon the Jew, said, "His Excellency the Count of Arestino demands, through my agency, the restoration of certain diamonds which his lordship has good reason to believe are in your possession.
"Yes, there are the arms of Arestino, with the ciphers of the Countess, G. A. Giulia Arestino a very pretty name, by my troth! Ah, how the stones sparkle!" he cried, as he opened the case. "And the inventory is complete, just as it was described to me by her ladyship.
The count then ascended the marble staircase, traversed the corridors leading toward his lady's apartments, and placed himself against the door of that one wherein Giulia had already received her lover. Thus, while silence, and calmness, and moonlight reign without yet within the walls of the Arestino mansion a storm has gathered, to explode fearfully.
And now the fatal moment seemed to be at hand, and the familiars already grasped him rudely to hurl him on the rack, when, as if suddenly inspired by a superhuman strength, the young nobleman dashed the men from him; then, with lightning speed, he seized a massive iron bar that was used to move the windlass of the rack, and in another instant, before a saving arm could intervene, the deadly instrument struck down the Count of Arestino at the feet of the grand inquisitor, who started back with a cry of horror!
"During the period that the Lady of Arestino and myself were companions in captivity," responded Flora, with a frankness as amiable as it was convincing, "she never in the most distant manner alluded to her love for the Marquis of Orsini.
Wast thou not an inmate of that most holy sanctuary, the convent of Carmelite nuns? wast thou not there the companion of Giulia of Arestino? did not a sacrilegious horde of miscreants break into the convent, headed or at least accompanied by a certain Manuel d'Orsini who was the lover of the countess? was not this invasion of the sacred place undertaken to rescue that guilty woman? and did she not find an asylum at the abode of your aunt, doubtless with your connivance, until the day of her arrest?"
It may be proper to inform the reader that Flora had solicited her brother to save the Marquis of Orsini and the Countess Giulia, to whom the young wife of Francisco had been indebted for her escape from the Carmelite Convent; for, as the secrets of the torture chamber were never suffered to transpire, she was of course ignorant of the death of the guilty Giulia, and of the assassination of the Count of Arestino by the Marquis of Orsini.
First, the hand of the sculptor had carved it into numerous medallions, on which the pencil of the painter had then delineated the most remarkable scenes in early Florentine history. Round the sides, or cornices, were beautifully sculptured in marble the heads of the principal ancestors of the Count of Arestino.