The Marchese was an old man of the world,--as the cynical phrase goes,--and of what a world?--an old Italian Marchese of the beginning of the nineteenth century,--a period when, if crime was less rife than in former and stronger ages, morality was never at a lower ebb. He was a man whose musical tastes had made him conversant with the Divas of the stage, and familiar with the interior aspects of Italian theatrical life;--one, too, whom circumstances had caused to become specially well acquainted with the antecedent history of this particular Diva now stretched on the sofa before him. Yet none the less for all this did "beauty's tear," enhanced by beauty's laced pocket-handkerchief, exercise on him its usual glamour. Calumniated!--that lovely creature of matchless purity before him,--matchless purity! so white was her throat; so round and slender her waist; so daintily snowy her muslin drapery. Calumny! Of course it was calumny. And how he could have poignarded the calumniators, and taken the poor, fluttering, persecuted Diva to his bosom. The desire to execute that latter portion of retributive and poetical justice was making itself felt stronger and stronger within him every minute, as he sat beside the sofa exposed to the full force of the magnetic poison-current which was intoxicating him. "Signora--" he said, putting his hand out to take hers, which she readily gave him. His own hand shook, and he paused in his speech, overcome for a moment by a sort of dizziness and a sudden rush of the blood to his brow and eyes,--a veritable electric shock caused by the contact of her hand with his. "Signora," he continued, recovering himself, "no such slander--no such insults will follow you here; none such shall follow you here. Lamberto di Castelmare can, at least in Ravenna, promise you that much. Nor if they did follow you, would such stories here be believed." "Generous! Just!" murmured Bianca behind the laced pocket-handkerchief in a broken voice, just loud enough to reach the neighbouring ear of the Marchese, while she suffered her slender fingers to press the hand which held hers just perceptibly before withdrawing it from him;--"just," she continued in a louder tone, taking her handkerchief from her face, and raising her shoulders a little from the sofa, so as to turn more fully towards him, while her eyes fired point blank into his a broadside of uncontrollable gratitude and admiration;--"just, because generous and noble. Oh, Signor Marchese, those who have never known what it is to suffer from a slanderous tongue can never know the delight--the sweet consolation of meeting with such generous appreciation."