“He would not learn how deeply I could have loved, but he shall feel—he and his puny minion—how bitterly I can hate, and how fearfully I can avenge!” “He is not married yet,” her brother menacingly observed. “The saints be praised for that,” she replied; “There shall be more guests at the wedding than are bidden.” She retired to her own apartment, and after a long interview with her principal attendant she gave directions that no one should be admitted to see her, and that no summons, from any source, should be communicated to her. CHAPTER VII. The council had assembled at the Amedi palace. In a spacious apartment a crowd of men sat together. There were dark frowns upon their countenances, and, at intervals, angry exclamations escaped from their lips, as the cause of their convocation was dwelt upon with malignant emphasis and vehement declamation by Jacopa Amedi. “What,” he asked, after having recapitulated the facts, “should be the fate of him, who, casting aside the honor of knighthood and manhood, violates his plighted word, showers disgraceful contumely upon our house, and offers deadliest insult to Amedi’s daughter?” “Death!” replied a solitary voice, as the door of the apartment opened, and a stranger stood at the threshold. The eyes of all were turned with wonder in the direction from which the voice proceeded. No one present appeared to know the stranger. The intruder gazed around unrebuked by the inquiring looks that were bent upon him, and as his eye met the speaker’s, he repeated the ominous word which had startled the assembled group. He was a youth of fine appearance; slight in form, but of a lofty bearing, with a handsome countenance, and full, large, searching, dark eyes. His dress was of sable velvet. Upon his head he wore a cap, surmounted with two black plumes, and at his side there hung a sombre-cased rapier, the hilt of which glittered with diamonds. “Death!” he repeated, as he glanced deliberately from one individual to another, “death should be the doom of him who, traitorous to love and false to honor, pays back the affection of a betrothed wife with withering scorn, and upon the dignity of a noble house tramples with profane and sacrilegious tread!” Jacopa Amedi advanced from the position he had occupied, and confronted the new comer. “Whoe’er thou art, sir stranger,” he said, “thou hast mistaken the place for thy reception. This is a meeting only of the relatives of our house—thou canst not claim kindred with the Amedi.” “I am,” the youth replied, “of noble birth—a Ghibelline—a friend to thy family and cause, and an enemy—a deadly enemy—to Buondlemonte and the Donati. Thy wrongs are the wrongs of all who hate the Guelphs, and affect every noble in the land. Me they have united to thee by an indissoluble bond, and I proclaim again that death—death unannounced—should be the fate launched at the treacherous Buondlemonte!”