But to return to that which ought to be our home, and find every express wish neglected, every warning slighted, every care frustrated, and all we have condemned or forbidden, done--that must be painful indeed! The arrival of Lorenzo Visconti in Imola was unexpected; and his short stay with Ramiro d'Orco but served to carry the news to the gay palazzo inhabited by his wife, and create some confusion there. True, when he entered the wide saloons, where she was surrounded by her own admiring crowd, Eloise rose and advanced to meet him, with alight, careless air of independence, saying, "Why, my good lord, you have taken us by surprise. We thought you still at the siege of Forli." "Forli has capitulated, madame," replied Lorenzo, gazing round, and seeing all those whom he wished not to see. "It was too wise to be taken by surprise. But I am dusty with riding--tired too. I will retire, take some repose, and change my apparel." Thus saying, he left the room. Eloise made no pretence of following him; and, as he closed the door, he could hear her light laugh at a jest--perhaps at himself--from some of her gay attendants. Oh, how his heart sickened as, led by Antonio, he trod the way to the apartments of his wife! "Leave me, Antonio," he said, "and return in an hour. There, busy not yourself with the apparel. Heaven knows whether I shall want it. Leave me, I say!" "When you have leisure, my lord, I would fain speak a word or two in your private ear," said Antonio; "you rode so fast upon the road I could not give you some information I have obtained." "Regarding whom?" asked Lorenzo, with a frowning brow; "your lady?" "No, my lord, regarding the Signora d'Orco," replied the man. But Lorenzo merely waved his hand for him to depart; and when he was gone, pressed his hands upon his burning temples, and sat gazing on the ground. His head swam; his heart ached; his mind was irresolute. In his own soul he compared Leonora d'Orco with Eloise de Chaumont. He asked himself if, fickle as she had shown herself to be, Leonora, once his wife, would have received him so on his return from labour and dangers. He remembered the days of old, and answered the question readily. But then he turned to bitterer and more terrible inquiries. Was his wife faithful to him? or was he but the butt and ridicule of those whom, contrary to his plainest injunctions, she had brought from Rome? He was of no jealous disposition. By nature he was frank and confiding; but her conduct had been such--was such, that those comments, so hard to bear--those suspicions, that sting more terribly than scorpions, had been busy round his ears even at the court of France.