Could year after year of their lives have rolled away with such feelings and amid such employments, they would have indeed been blessed! But no! Alas! that could not be! Love, and youth, and hope, are but the sun-fringe of the cloud of life, the flame that gilds the bark it consumes, the lightning flashes that foretell a rent and shattered heart! For love, if no outward influences assail (or assailing, are conquered and driven back), there is custom, that slow, insidious lullaby, singing in Morphean tones unceasingly, till, wearied and overcome, _that_ passion, that would have repelled a visible foe, sinks at his post in quietness--asleep! It came! It burst upon them without a warning! Fate had suspended a sword above their heads; but, unlike the tyrant's envious favorite, they saw it not ere it fell! It came--crushing and blighting the flowers that had blossomed for them, and, tearing their young hearts from the beautiful dream-world in which they revelled, brought them back to the harsh and dull and cold realities of this! The father of the lover was suddenly arrested by the myrmidons of the terrible Council of Ten. It was discovered he was the head of a wide-spread conspiracy against the state, and the expiration of the month of his arrest saw the noble and powerful family of Zanotti exiles--its lord sent forth with the boon of life, but with ruined fortunes and a tarnished name--its heir an outcast, though spotless of a single crime. The parting of the lovers was brief and terrible. _She_ swore to him that death only should take the bloom from her love, that, ruined in name and fortune as he was, he was, as ever, the high priest of her heart's temple, and that no other could ever approach its altar. _He_ offered _no vows_, but said to her, that if five years sped by without his presence, to deem him dead, and know he had died in striving to win laurels worthy to lay before her father's daughter! * * * * * CHAPTER III. YEARS passed, and in a foreign land Alfieri sought to win wealth and a new name to offer the idol of his heart. He succeeded beyond his wildest hopes, and with an impatience that would have been unsatisfied with the swiftness of the lightning, sped over the waters, in a richly freighted argosy of his own, back to his native city of the "Siren Sea." Trusty adherents of his house had, in the mean time, procured the reversion of the attainder as far as it touched him, and, as his father was no longer alive, there was a strong prospect of his estate being restored to him. Arrived at Venice, he learned that the Duke D'Alvarez had been recalled, and in the course of conversation the new ambassador mentioned that there was talk in Madrid of a projected nuptial between the Donna Leonora and the Prince Carlos of the blood royal of Spain.