"Why, let him then see!" exclaimed Di Vasari, starting from his seat. A door opposite to the recess in which the prisoner stood was thrown open; and a female--it was Aurelia herself--bound, and guarded by Gonsalvo's servants, stood before him. The recoil of the outlaw burst his bonds like threads; the cords that tied him seemed to fall off by witchcraft more than to be broken. But the effort was involuntary; it was followed by no movement, and indicated no purpose. For one moment the hands of the guards were upon their swords; but a single glance was enough, and showed the precaution was needless. The shadow of that passing door, as it swung slowly to upon its muffled hinges, seemed to sweep every trace of former expression from Arionelli's countenance. Familiar with objects of danger and alarm, a moment sufficed him to perceive that the ground on which he had stood, as on a rock, was gone. One convulsive shudder ran through his frame, as the high clear voice of Aurelia pronounced, in trembling agony, the name of "Luigino!" He bowed his face, as one who abandoned further contest, and seemed to await what was to come. "Luigino Arionelli," said Gonsalvo, coldly, and in the measured tone of conscious power, "do you yet repent you of your obstinacy; and will you make confession as to the fate of Lorenzo di Vasari?" A pause ensued, and the robber attempted to rally his faculties; but the effort was unsuccessful. At length he spoke, but not as he had before spoken; there was a difference in the steadiness of his tone, and a still wider in the carelessness of his manner.--"You know, my lords," he said, "that the power is now yours. There was but one creature on earth for whom I could have wept or trembled, and she is in your hands. The struggle is over; I and my companions have lived like men; and I trust we shall die like men. Let my wife depart; she has done the state no wrong, and has no knowledge of that which you desire to learn. And as soon as she shall have passed the boundaries of the Florentine territory, I will confess the whole--much or little--that I can disclose of the fate of the Chevalier di Vasari." The very deep, though repressed, anxiety with which the speaker put this proposal, seemed to imply a doubt how far it could be accepted. He was not mistaken; those who held the power, knew the tenure by which they held it, and that tenure they were not disposed to part with.