"Why not?" muttered Beatrice feebly; and she moved on, with her head bowed on her breast, and all the pride of her step was gone. They reached a carriage that stood by the angle of the road. Beatrice spake a word apart to the driver, who was an Italian, in the pay of the Count the man nodded, and opened the carriage door. The ladies entered. Beatrice pulled down the blinds; the man remounted his box, and drove on rapidly. Beatrice, leaning back, groaned aloud. Violante drew nearer to her side. "Are you in pain?" said she, with her tender, melodious voice; "or can I serve you as you would serve me?" "Child, give me your hand, and be silent while I look at you. Was I ever so fair as this? Never! And what deeps--what deeps roll between her and me!" She said this as of some one absent, and again sank into silence; but continued still to gaze on Violante, whose eyes, vailed by their long fringes, drooped beneath the gaze. Suddenly Beatrice started, exclaiming, "No, it shall not be!" and placed her hand on the check-string. "What shall not be?" asked Violante, surprised by the cry and the action. Beatrice paused--her breast heaved visibly under her dress. "Stay," she said, slowly. "As you say, we are both women of the same noble house; you would reject the suit of my brother, yet you have seen him; his the form to please the eye--his the arts that allure the fancy. He offers to you rank, wealth, your father's pardon and recall. If I could remove the objections which your father entertains--prove that the Count has less wronged him than he deems, would you still reject the rank, and the wealth, and the hand of Giulio Franzini?" "Oh, yes, yes, were his hand a king's!" "Still, then, as woman to woman--both, as you say, akin, and sprung from the same lineage--still, then, answer me--answer me, for you speak to one who has loved--Is it not that you love another? Speak." "I do not know. Nay, not love--it was a romance; it is a thing impossible. Do not question--I can not answer." And the broken words were choked by sudden tears. Beatrice's face grew hard and pitiless. Again she lowered her vail, and withdrew her hand from the check-string; but the coachman had felt the touch, and halted. "Drive on," said Beatrice, "as you were directed." Both were now long silent--Violante with great difficulty recovering from her emotion, Beatrice breathing hard, and her arms folded firmly across her breast. Meanwhile the carriage had entered London--it passed the quarter in which Madame di Negra's house was situated--it rolled fast over a bridge--it whirled through a broad thoroughfare, then through defiles of lanes, with tall, blank, dreary houses on either side. On it went, and on, till Violante suddenly took alarm. "Do you live so far?" she said, drawing up the blind, and gazing in dismay on the strange ignoble suburb. "I shall be missed already. Oh, let us turn back, I beseech you."