In the agony of her feelings her voice became almost a shriek, and her wild, affrighted face had a deadly pallor; she looked like one in a death-agony. Agostino was alarmed, and hastened to soothe her, by promising whatever she required. "Agnes, dear Agnes, I submit; only be calm. I promise anything,--anything in the wide world you can ask." "Will you let me go?" "Yes." "And will you let my poor grandmamma go with me?" "Yes." "And you will not talk with me any more?" "Not if you do not wish it. And now," he said, "that I have submitted to all these hard conditions, will you suffer me to raise you?" He took her hands and lifted her up; they were cold, and she was trembling and shivering. He held them a moment; she tried to withdraw them, and he let them go. "Farewell, Agnes!" he said. "I am going." She raised both her hands and pressed the sharp cross to her bosom, but made no answer. "I yield to your will," he continued. "Immediately when I leave you, your grandmother will come to you, and the attendants who brought you here will conduct you to the high-road. For me, since it is your will, I part here. Farewell, Agnes!" He held out his hand, but she stood as before, pale and silent, with her hands clasped on her breast. "Do your vows forbid even a farewell to a poor, humble friend?" said the knight, in a low tone. "I cannot," said Agnes, speaking at broken intervals, in a suffocating voice,--"for _your_ sake I cannot! I bear this pain for you,--for _you_! Oh, repent, and meet me in heaven!" She gave him her hand; he kneeled and kissed it, pressed it to his forehead, then rose and left the room. For a moment after the departure of the Cavalier, Agnes felt a bitter pang,--the pain which one feels on first realizing that a dear friend is lost forever; and then, rousing herself with a start and a sigh, she hurried into the inner room and threw herself on her knees, giving thanks that the dreadful trial was past and that she had not been left to fail. In a few moments she heard the voice of her grandmother in the outer apartment, and the old wrinkled creature clasped her grandchild in her arms, and wept with a passionate abandonment of fondness, calling her by every tender and endearing name which mothers give to their infants.