"My lord--my father!" she exclaimed, stretching out her hands towards him, "spare him! spare him! He is innocent--you know he is innocent! Lose not a moment--send down the pardon--some gentleman run down. He pardons him. Be quick! oh be quick!" "Hold, on your lives!" cried Ramiro d'Orco, in a voice of thunder. "Hence, girl. Take her away--some one take her away. He dies, if I live!" "Then hear, Ramiro d'Orco!" cried Leonora, "send me to the block instead of him. I poisoned her more surely than he did. See, here is the poison. I am ready; take me to the block! I confess the crime. But hear me, lords and gentlemen all: Lorenzo Visconti is innocent--innocent of the death of his poor wife--innocent of the neglect and insult my father thinks he offered me, and for which, in truth, he does him to death; innocent of all offence, as this hard parent will find when we are both in our still graves." "Ha! what is that?" exclaimed her father, gazing at her; "she raves--take her away!" "I rave not. It is all true," cried Leonora; "so help me God, as he has explained all. Will you send the pardon now? Oh, speak! speak!" "It is too late," said Ramiro, in a low and gloomy tone, pointing with his hand down the street. Leonora turned and gazed, with her eyes almost starting from her head. Four men were carrying a bier with something stretched upon it, and a cloak thrown over all. Leonora sprung upon her feet, uttered a shriek that rung through the whole square, and then fell senseless on the ground. A brief lapse of forgetfulness came to that wrung and agonized heart, and then she opened her eyes, but she closed them quickly again. She fancied she was in a dream. What was it she thought she saw? The face of Lorenzo Visconti bending over her; French soldiers all armed; the banners of the Church mingled with others she knew not. Oh, it was a dream--a deceitful dream! "Let me take her, Lorenzo," said a voice she had not heard for years; "joy kills as well as sorrow. Leonora--cousin Leonora, it is De Vitry: wake up--wake up. Things are not so bad as they seemed. It was the corpse of a murdering villain you saw, justly condemned to death yesterday at this hour. Visconti is safe." Leonora opened her eyes again, and found herself in the arms of De Vitry. She gazed anxiously round. There stood Lorenzo with his head uncovered, and his upper garment off; and a smile, like that of an angel, came upon her lips; but when he advanced a step towards her, she shrunk back in De Vitry's arms, murmuring, "Take me to my father! Oh! where is my father?" and, covering her eyes with her hands, she wept profusely. "A litter is coming speedily from the inn there," said Leonardo da Vinci; "let me escort her, my lord. You have other matters to attend to just now, and she will be well in privacy for a time. Here comes Antonio with a litter."