CHAPTER IX.

LET us return to St. Angelo, and to that one of its chambers in which the Marchese della Scala had so recently expired.

There was sitting the Lady Bianca in apparent apathy-apathy at which even those servitors of death, who quickly busied themselves about the corpse, were scared as they looked upon it. They had been familiar with cries and shrieks, and frantic gesticulations, for all these they were wont to witness among the affectionate survivors of the dead. Indeed, they had also often seen, in contrast, the silence, the stunned silence of the mourners. But now something strange, something absolutely foreign to the grief of mere bereavement, met their eyes and appalled them.

There was sitting the Lady Bianca. She was silent, it is true. True also is it that her looks towards the corpse of her father were frequent, and as frequent were the big tears that followed. Still the dominant expression of her countenance was not that of grief. It was that of stern resolution.

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And who, that hath ever seen it, hath ever forgotten

such an expression amid that of love and that of sorrow?

We may, without any use of fancy, but in the exercise of a legitimate imagination, picture to ourselves the combined result of a storm-cloud and a gentle rain. How different is that effect upon the mind from that which is felt on the sight of a storm-cloud, or of a genial shower, when seen singly!

Bianca's face now frowned and threatened, then dissolved into tenderness and sorrow. But what is more, the forehead frowned and relaxed at the self-same moment; so, also, her eyes flashed and wept.

And this strange conjunction of emotions will not surprise the observer.

She had lost her father! Noble he was in the estimate of men, but who knew his true nobility as she had known it? Who knew as she had known his high truthfulness; his unspotted virtue; his gentleness, fringed with light as it was by the glory of his fame? To her, motherless as she had been from her infancy, he had been mother and father both. She looked upon his corpse, shuddered. Then there came, with a velocity which memory had never known before, his former words and looks of love, ay, even his reproaches. Then came her recollections of pride in his triumphs, above all, her bounding joy when he had so often and so gladly exchanged the applauses and pageantries of the world for the quiet society of his child. Then came again her horror and wrath, that this same noble

being should have been unjustly imprisoned, insulted, tortured.

Yet amid all this not one thought of her own deserted, perilous condition crossed her; while she frowned and wept.

She wept indeed, the tears were copious, still there was no outburst: all was silent and motionless within her full-fraught bosom.

What, however, made her frown? Was it her recollection of the recent insult of the Cardinal? Did her cheek burn with fire, as she recalled, not so much his proposals as his daring challenge of her noble father's fame?

No she was rather dwelling, though her agony was great, upon the fatal presumptions against Count Arensberg, that he whom she had enshrined on the altar of her heart, should have ever sold his honour, even though he may have thought therewith to buy her love; that he should have descended to low and lying acts, even though his purpose were to rescue that dear, dear being that lay dead before her.

Thus she was feeling, and happy for her it was that there were such antagonistic forces working against each other, within her soul. They neutralized each other, and left her in that comparative self-command which, as we shall soon see, she so much needed.

"You shall not touch it! You shall not touch it!" Bianca exclaimed eagerly, when some servitors of the Church entered the chamber, and proceeded to arrange the corpse for its interment.

"The Church must be obeyed, fair lady," answered, and resolutely enough, the leader of the sable company. "The Marchese," continued he, "hath died unannealed, and we must observe the laws of the Holy Father."

"Then bear his blessed corpse whithersoever the Church will," exclaimed the half-frantic and imprudent lady. "Bear him, I say, whithersoever the Church will. It may be you escape not his confronting you on the day of the Resurrection."

"Silence-silence, for God's sake!" implored a voice beside her. It was a very gentle and a very soothing "Speak not!" it continued; "remonstrance is now useless it may be fatal to yourself. Trust me, dear lady, I will arrange all."

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"And you dare, Lord Cardinal," cried Bianca, "you dare thus again, and in the very presence of the dead, to insult me? Begone, Lord Cardinal! or, by the manes of my father, I will denounce you-yea, tomorrow-before his Holiness."

"You shall rue this, insolent beauty!" the Cardinal murmured.

"Bear away!" he exclaimed in a loud, commanding tone, "bear away this fair young heretic, who thus has scorned the authority of Holy Church, to the Convent della Penitenzza. See to it, brethren, that she escapes not."

This command he uttered to an attendant band of followers who had accompanied him; and despite her struggles, and deafening her shrieks by a thick cowl

which they threw over her head, they tore her bodily away from her father's corpse and from the Castle of St. Angelo.

Down the hill on which stood the castle they descended, little dreaming that they had been observed and were being tracked by some of the trusty scouts of Count Arensberg. As they diverged off to the right, through a dark, narrow avenue of houses which led to the Convent della Penitenzza, and while their vigilance and caution were relaxed, they now feeling so near at home—the poor captive suddenly threw off the suffocating cowl, and with one long, loud shriek for help startled even the sleepers in the surrounding houses from their trance.

But that shriek had been heard, and by one whose young chivalrous heart forgot all orders, all caution, at such an appeal from woman,

For Rupert had no sooner despatched a messenger to his brother to inform him of what he had seen passing than, but guardedly, he followed the ravishers.

This he did not for the purpose of rescuing her whom he shrewdly suspected to be the object of all this violence; for he had received the orders of his brother, his commanding officer, to do nothing but observe.

Yet the instant that female cry reached him, all commands—a soldier's commands though they werewere utterly forgotten.

He had only three men with him, and the opposite