"He is your father, Lady," answered the Count, sternly; "he is my brother. His wrongs to me I could forgive--I do forgive them. His wrongs to those who were dearer to me than life, I forgive them too. But he has wronged others, ay, and with a darker and more devilish art than man might fancy hell itself could produce--blackened the name of the honest and the true, of the most faithful of servants and friends, that he might stifle in the blood of the messenger the crimes committed against him who sent him. Entreat not, Ferdinand, for it is in vain. In this I am immoveable. The hour of mercy, as I have said, is past. Endurance has been prolonged to the utmost; and not even the voice of a son, dear and beloved though he may be, can shake me in my purpose. It is all, all in vain. Rise, youth: if I must speak plain, I deny your boon--I refuse your prayer; and this man dies, as I hope--" "Hold!" said Father George, "there is still another voice to be heard." "Not yours, good Father," said the Count. "I love, I esteem you. I know that for this object you have laboured to unite him who is dearest to me on this earth, to the daughter of him who has become my bitterest foe; and I have seen and suffered it, for her virtues atone for the crime of being his daughter. But I have suffered it with the full resolve of guarding myself sternly against your pious policy, and not permitting my firm heart to be moved, even by filial love or parental tenderness, to pardon him who has hardened his heart till pity were folly, and mercy were injustice. Speak not for him; for I will not hear. Your voice is powerless as theirs." "There may be another stronger," said the monk; and at the same moment a lady, closely veiled, advanced from behind him. "I know not that!" she said (and she, too, knelt at the Count's feet), "my voice was once strong with you, my noble lord. I am sure that it will be powerful still, unless you are changed indeed--changed in heart, as I am in form, unless your spirit has lost that beauty of essence which I have lost of person. Yet my voice, now as ever, shall be raised only in entreaty, beseeching you to remember hours of tenderness and love long past, and to grant life and pardon to this man, your brother, for the sake of one who has mourned and wept full twenty years for you." A strange change had come over the Count of Ehrenstein. It could hardly be said he listened. He heard it, it is true; but his spirit seemed pre-occupied by other thoughts. His face turned deadly pale; he trembled in every limb; he gasped, as if for breath; and all he could utter was, "That voice--that voice!" As she ended, he stretched forth his hands eagerly towards the veil, but ere he could touch it, she threw it back herself, and after one momentary gaze, he cast his arms around her, exclaiming, "My wife, my beloved!" and pressed her to his bosom, with a convulsive clasp.