“Yet Lady Margaret you say is unmoved.” “What of Lady Margaret?” interrupted Viviani, while bitter smiles quivered upon his lip. “Do you mark the pavement of stone upon which you tread? Do you see the steel of which this sabre is composed—once heated by the flames, now hard and insensible?—so cold,—so petrified is the heart, when it has once given full vent to passion. Marble is that heart which only beats for my destruction. The time is not yet arrived, but I will dash the cup of joy from her lips; then drink the dregs myself, and die.” “Mere jealous threats,” said Gondimar. “The curse of innocent blood is on her,” replied Viviani, as his livid cheeks and lips resumed a purple dye. “Name her no more.” “Explain yourself,” cried his astonished friend. “You frequently allude to scenes of deeper guilt and horror, than I dare even suffer myself to imagine possible.” “The heart of man is unfathomable,” replied Viviani;—“that which seems, is not:—that which is, seems not: we should neither trust our eyes nor ears, in a world like this. But time, which ripens all things, shall disclose the secrets even of the dead.” A short time after this conversation with Gondimar, Viviani took leave of him. He informed him fully of his projects; and Lady Margaret was also consulted upon the occasion. “What is become of your menaced vengeance,” she said, smiling upon him, in their last parting interview. He laughed at the remembrance of his words. “Am I the object now of your abhorrence,” she said, placing her white hand carelessly upon his head. “Not absolutely,” replied the young Count, shrinking, however, from the pressure of that hand. “Touch me not,” he whispered more earnestly, “it thrills through my soul.—Keep those endearments for Dartford: leave me in peace.” Immediately after this he left London; and by the first letter Lady Margaret received from him, she found that he was preparing to embark. CHAPTER XXIX. Frances Seymour’s marriage with Lord Trelawny was now celebrated, after which the whole family left London for Ireland.