"We are nearly there now. The driver has taken this road in order to avoid those streets in which we might have been seen together--perhaps by my brother himself. Listen to me, and talk of--of the lover whom you rightly associate with a vain romance. 'Impossible'--yes, it is impossible!" Violante clasped her hands before her eyes, and bowed down her head. "Why are you so cruel?" said she. "This is not what you promised! How are you to serve my father--how restore him to his country? This is what you promised." "If you consent to one sacrifice, I will fulfill that promise. We are arrived." The carriage stopped before a tall dull house, divided from other houses by a high wall that appeared to inclose a yard, and standing at the end of a narrow lane, which was bounded on the one side by the Thames. In that quarter the river was crowded with gloomy, dark-looking vessels and craft, all lying lifeless under the wintry sky. The driver dismounted and rang the bell. Two swarthy Italian faces presented themselves at the threshold. Beatrice descended lightly, and gave her hand to Violante. "Now, here we shall be secure," said she; "and here a few minutes may suffice to decide your fate." As the door closed on Violante--who, now waking to suspicion, to alarm, looked fearfully round the dark and dismal hall--Beatrice turned; "Let the carriage wait." The Italian who received the order bowed and smiled; but when the two ladies had ascended the stairs, he re-opened the street-door and said to the driver, "Back to the Count, and say 'all is safe.'" The carriage drove off. The man who had given this order barred and locked the door, and, taking with him the huge key, plunged into the mystic recesses of the basement and disappeared. The hall, thus left solitary, had the grim aspect of a prison; the strong door sheeted with iron--the rugged stone stairs, lighted by a high window grimed with the dust of years, and jealously barred--and the walls themselves abutting out rudely here and there, as if against violence even from within. CHAPTER VI.