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"And the Marchese Ludovico?" asked the Marchese, rather strangely, as it struck the lawyer, seeing that nothing had as yet been said to connect the young Marchese with the catastrophe, and he was not aware of the fact that the Marchese knew of his nephew's excursion to the Pineta.
The lawyer had heard that much; and Leandro was aware of the fact that Bianca was to be in the Pineta at that time. So much was clear from what the Marchese had said. But she was to be there with Ludovico how could the poet expect to find her alone?
Then descending to the stables, by one of those private doors and stairs so frequently to be found in old Italian palaces, and generally contrived to communicate with the principal sleeping chamber of the dwelling, he mounted his horse, and rode furiously to the Pineta, quitting the city, not by the Porta Nueva, but by the next gate towards the south.
There is nothing like our Pineta!" "I should so like to see it. It does seem really a shame to leave Ravenna without ever having seen the Pineta." "Oh, you must not dream of doing so. You must make a little excursion one of these fine spring days. It is just the time for it. Some morning, the earlier the better. But I dare say your habits are not very matutinal, Signora?"
A little weary with the good but damp old Christians, we ordered our driver to continue across the marsh to the Pineta, whose dark fringe bounded all our horizon toward the Adriatic. It is the largest unbroken forest in Italy, and by all odds the most poetic in itself and its associations.
Now we will go back to the ball-room; but don't dance till you have not a leg left to stand on. We must have a good long stroll in the Pineta." "Lascia fare a me! I dare say I shan't dance another dance unless, indeed, we have one more turn together before you go. Is there time?" "Oh yes, for that plenty of time. If you are not afraid of tiring yourself, one more last dance by all means."
The Marchese threw himself back in his deep easy chair, and covered his face with his hand. The lawyer paused, and shook his head as he looked at him. "The friar in the Pineta!" he exclaimed, getting up from his chair after a minute or two, and taking a few disorderly steps across the room.
Never having left Venice before in her life, old Orsola was as much a stranger in Ravenna, and felt herself to be in an unknown world, as completely as an Englishman would in Japan. Since she had been in Ravenna she had frequently heard the Pineta spoken of, and the old church out there in which her young friend was to do a portion of her task.
Alas, that I should have to say so, it is too self-evident. You persuade this poor creature to go out alone with you into the Pineta at an extraordinary hour of the morning, knowing then, or according to your own showing, becoming aware soon after you started that it was your uncle's intention by a marriage with this woman to destroy utterly every prospect you have in the world.
She made not the slightest difficulty of telling him, that when she had seen Ludovico and Bianca drive past the church towards the forest she had felt a strong temptation to follow them thither; she told him all about the conversation she had had with the old monk, and repeated the directions she had received from him as to the path by which she might reach the Pineta, and return that way towards the city, without coming back into the high-road, till she got near the walls.
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