Oh! Adelaide, how could your pure and generous heart persuade itself even in a single thought or by a single word to palliate an offence, too atrocious to admit of pardon? vainly did you strive to deceive yourself; one serious glance falling on the veil, which affection would fain have thrown over the crime of your beloved, was frequently enough to make you tremble and blush at being employed in such an office. For some time the Lady of the Beacon-Tower resided at Ravenstein in a situation, whose apparent tranquillity was more artificial than real, but which still was rendered supportable by the hope of better days. A thunder-clap suddenly rouzed her from her pleasing dreams, and a tempest hurried her towards the termination of her sorrows. Every attempt to obtain intelligence of the guilty wanderer had hitherto been unsuccessful. Adelaide’s messengers returned not; Rodolpho was unable to dispatch messengers in return, for he had no sooner set his foot within the precincts of the Vatican, than he was delivered into the hands of avenging justice. What was his present fate, and what would be that which was still reserved for him, was already well-known to every one in the neighbourhood of Ravenstein. Concealed from her by the cruel tenderness of her attendants, her husband’s situation was a secret to Adelaide alone. Surely it was cruel to hide from her an event, which she could not escape knowing in the end, till the whole consciousness of her misfortunes burst upon her at once, and with the violence of the shock crushed her. The Lady of the Beacon-Tower entertained no apprehensions for herself; happen what would, she believed her own person to be safe. The inhabitants of the Helvetian mountains, in which she resided, had been long dissatisfied with the government of princes, who only employed their power to rob them of their liberty; and they had secretly resolved to seize the first opportunity of breaking their chains. They were prepared to run every hazard in defence of their adored Adelaide; and they counted it unnecessary to warn her of the approach of dangers, which they were firmly determined to prevent from ever reaching her. But where are the mountains so inaccessible, the protection so powerful, and the valour so impossible to be subdued, that calamity cannot overcome all obstacles in pursuit of her destined victim! Johanna, the Queen of Hungary, who with the fury of a tigress burned to revenge her father’s death, demanded admission into these tranquil vallies, whose inhabitants, from their having granted Rodolpho a temporary asylum, she considered as adherents to the guilty Duke of Swabia. One fortress after another fell into her power: she became mistress by degrees of the whole country; and at length Adelaide heard the sound of hostile trumpets, ere she had yet been made aware, that the most revengeful of all women had penetrated into Helvetia.