"Why, sickness?----Yet, no--no--he was not sick--it was not that!--Once more, Giuletta--for mercy! How sayest thou! All is silent still? Then he would not come! He was false--faithless--perjured--fled to his new minion--wedded to another!--Why, rather than that, let him have died--have perished! by plague--by flood--by fire--by knife or poison! Was not she, the Countess, dying--(and did she shrink to die?)--dying for the love she had borne him? Let her behold him lifeless! Mark his last gasp! Hear his last sigh! Know that he died without help--without hope--but let her not know him the husband of Perline di Francavilla!" Following on that last word, like its response or echo--raised, spell-like, by its utterance--a distant foot is heard upon the winding turret-stair. Light as it falls, the Countess's ear has caught and recognised it! Low as it treads, the rush with which it comes is that of lightning. In one moment more the tapestried door has flown open--a cavalier, hurried and travel-worn, flings himself by the Countess's bedside. The door is closed; the attendant has left the chamber; the Knight has redeemed his faith; and the lady and her lover--it is for the last time--are to be alone together! The Chevalier di Vasari held his lady's hand clasped within both his own; and he so held it long, and spoke not. He pressed it to his burning forehead, not to his lips; his face was buried in the drapery of the bed by which he knelt; and his sobs, although repressed with pain, were deep and audible. Justly condemned by his mistress, or unjustly; false to his vows, or true; he was at least no lover of profession, no idler, who gained and flung away for pride: but what he felt, he spoke right on, whether from the heart or from the senses (which are nearer akin, perhaps, in the purest passion, than philosophers will admit); and if he had changed--why was it, but because, in love, there can be no such pledge as "Constancy?" because men can hold no control over an emotion which is as involuntary as their laughter or their tears;--and because he who promises, but for one day, the continuance of his passion to a woman--if he were to promise the continuance of life, might as well have the power to perform!