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Updated: June 25, 2025
How, then, could she all at once shake off the feeling of awe, almost terror, with which her aunt inspired her? Besides, was not the very sound of Nobili's name abhorrent to her? Why the marchesa should abhor him or his name, Enrica could not tell. It was a mystery to her altogether beyond her small experience of life. But it was so. No, she would say nothing; that was safest.
"What!" cries the marchesa, her fury again roused by such a daring assertion. "What do you call nothing? Do you deny that you love Nobili?" "No, my aunt. I love him I love him." The mention of Nobili's name gave Enrica courage. With that name the sunlit days of meeting came back again. A gleam of their divine refraction swam before her. Nobili is he not strong, and brave, and true?
"You are not a triumphant lover, certainly. What is the matter?" "You are very good to care," answered Nobili, sighing again, gazing into her face; "once I thought that my fate did touch you." "Yes, once," Nera rejoined. "Once long ago." She gave an airy laugh that grated on Nobili's ears. "But we meet so seldom." "True, true," he answered hurriedly, "too seldom." His manner was most constrained.
Enrica took the letter, then stared at Giacomo so fixedly, before he turned to go, it haunted him many days after, for fear the signorina had given him the evil-eye. Enrica held the letter in her hand. It was Nobili's first letter to her. His name was in the corner, his monogram on the seal. The letter came to her in her loneliness like Nobili's visible presence.
The strain is too great, Nera lets fall the ring. The cavaliere claps his hands. Each gentleman rushes toward the lady wearing a rosette matching his ribbon. Nera rises. Already she is encircled by Nobili's arm. He draws her to him; she makes one step forward.
With the sound of her own voice all came back to Enrica in an instant. She closed her eyes, and longed never to open them again! "Gone! gone! forever!" sounded in her ears like a rushing of great waters. Then she lay for a long time quite still. She could not bear to speak to Pipa. His name Nobili's name was sacred. If Pipa knew what Nobili had done, she might speak ill of him.
But he trembles lest by offending her the tender flower before him may never again expand to the ardor of his love. If Fra Pacifico has not by his arguments already shaken Nobili's conviction of the righteousness of his own conduct, the sight of Enrica utterly overcomes him. "Deceive you!" he exclaims, approaching her and seizing her hands which she did not withdraw "deceive you!
With a grasp of iron Nobili holds back gallant Argo Argo foaming at the mouth; his white-coated chest heaving, as if in his last agony! Yet Argo is still immovable his heavy paws upon Nobili's chest pressing with all his weight upon him! Now the footsteps have turned the corner! Dim forms already shape themselves in the night mist.
His expression was of a man undergoing a terrible ordeal; defiance, shame, anger, contended on his face. There was something in the studied negligence of Count Nobili's appearance that irritated the marchesa to the last degree of endurance. She bridled with rage, and exchanged a significant glance with Guglielmi. Footsteps were now heard coming from the sala. It was Enrica, led by the cavaliere.
The night-birds catch up the sound and screech; the frightened bats circle round wildly. At this moment heavy footsteps creak upon the gravel under the shadow of the wall. A low whistle passes through the air, and the dogs disappear. "A savage pack, like their mistress," was Count Nobili's thought as his eyes tried to pierce into the growing darkness. Night is coming on.
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