Texere frowned severely, and disregarding the speaker further, resumed his address to the senate: good father Sampayo suffered some tears to trickle down his aged cheeks. “It is our well-beloved monarch whom we would support,” he said mildly, “justice and loyalty demand such conduct at our hands; and Christian charity should teach us to hope, that when restored to his throne, and placed again within the reach of spiritual instruction, his pious soul will retrace its steps, and return to the bosom of the true faith!” “We are bound to act solely by the Pope’s direction;” gravely observed the Doge, “if you may obtain his holiness’s permission to hold converse with this mysterious personage, the republic will cheerfully add her consent--till then, he remains unseen by any one. This is our answer; you may withdraw.” Texere and Sampayo quitted the assembly, and retiring with their Portuguese friends who waited them without, proceeded to consultation upon their future movements. It was deemed expedient for one of them to repair immediately to Rome; and as father Sampayo’s orthodoxy and ghostly life had never been impeached, the choice fell upon him. Careless of his age and infirmities, he departed on the instant, and the remainder of the Portuguese lingered in Venice to wait the event, to continue their importunities, and to invite all such persons as remembered the figure of Don Sebastian to join in demanding permission to see and to peruse him. The long interval of time which elapsed between this period and that in which the different travellers met again, was spent in torturing anxiety by Kara Aziek and Sebastian. Bereft of their faithfulest friend, the devoted Gaspar, no one remained to share their hearts with each other, but their far distant Blanche: yet of her, they dared not inquire. Experience had taught them suspicion of all around them; and since the very existence of Blanche was a secret between England and the late Don Emanuel De Castro’s family, they blest his prudence, and resolved to perish with anxiety, rather than betray their child into danger. To believe her ignorant of their changed fortune, was to imagine an impossibility: the interruption of their correspondence alone, would arouse her inquiries, and those inquiries must lead to explanation. How then, was she suffering? and how would her tender nature enable her to live through months, perhaps years of constant apprehension? These thoughts preyed upon each; yet neither of them gave utterance to their sorrow. Sebastian never permitted himself to lament any other misfortune than that of knowing himself the prime cause of so much misery to the woman he loved; and Kara Aziek, afflicted by this self-reproach, became solicitous to prove that her sorrows were not yet so insupportable as he believed.