sed, burst convulsively from the tough and flinty bosom, which had hitherto appeared incapable of harbouring it. "BE that sigh eternal," inwardly repeated Morano, drawing the poniard from under his garment; involuntarily he gazed upon it, while his hand leant forcibly on the trunk; it was yet wet with the blood of Lorenzo. "HELLISH fiend !" he exclaimed, moving towards him, but for thee, it had now been pure, been spotless; but for thy pernicious doctrines, thy accursed arts, I had still been guiltless, still been"- "DE Cleance," murmured Zanotti, while his whole body seemed shaken by the vapours of his sleeping fancy, "where B 4 "where is thy daughter now? Parent Paulina !" "MORANO shuddered; madness rushed on his brain; guilt and wretchedness curdled through his veins; he darted on him; raised his arm-but the violence with which he did it shook the trunk; it fell from its support; Zanotti awakened from his dream, and beheld the Marchese prostrate in agony at his feet. "VILE miscreant!" he exclaimed, while his whole form looked more than human. "VILE deceiver! thou hast sealed the doom which long has been impending over thy head. Hast thou forgotten the Eve of San Pietro? Weak Moraldi, Moraldi, hast thou forgotten, that the day which saw thee set thy hand against me, was to hurl down ruin on thy house and thee?" "UBALDO," replied the Marchese, in a voice trembling between rage and apprehension, yet striving to appear composed and collected, it were folly, to waste these precious moments. in useless recrimination, or by a vain and idle jealousy to break that league on which must now depend our mutual safety: "HEAR me," he continued, for a smile of indignant contempt, and the hasty stride with which he measured the boundary of the cell, proved the impatience of Zanotti; "hear me acknowledge that my life, my happiness, my reputation, are now within your power; that" "THEY have ever been so," interrupted Zanotti proudly; and that the murderer of de Cleance was a slave as abject, as is now the premeditated assassin of Ubaldo !" "AND is it for Ubaldo thus to mock the miseries he has caused, to reproach the conduct he has instigated!" exclaimed Morano, in accents. of the bitterest anguish-"No," he added, while the drops of agony started to his forehead, and his frenzied eye gazed wildly on his blood-stained hands, "I have not forgotten the Eve of San Pietro, neither have I, that the man who now dares to insult me, that the man to whom I now vainly sue sue for life and preservation, owes both to me that though cloaked in mystery, branded with suspicion, scorned by the world, and driven from society, I yet rescued and protected thee; unfriended, and unfortuned, I supported thee; raised thee from ruin, to honour and prosperity: thou, to whose insidious counsels I am indebted for all my sufferings, and for all my crimes; the deluder of my youth, the betrayer of my peace, the subtle fiend sent by my envious fate, to blight my prospects, and to crush my hopes: yet, not content with these, thou now dost sum up all with black ingratitude, to sting the tortured bosom which gave thee shelter. "MORANO," replied Zanotti, in a calm and steady tone, "I had thought, that when on San Pietro's Eve we formed B 6 |