“I have just come from M——’s, where I supposed I should find you; but I learned that, in sending my apology, you also excused yourself, and I did not remain an instant. What is the matter, Ginevra?... Are you ill?... Why did you not go? Why did you remain at home alone in this way?” His expression was singular. It was at once affectionate and troubled. He looked earnestly at me, as he gave me his hand, and put back my hair in order to see my face more distinctly. My cheeks were burning. The traces of the tears I had shed were visible, and, with his scrutinizing eyes upon me, I felt it hardly possible to restrain those that still filled my own.... He took my head between his two hands, and held it a moment against his breast in silence. The throbbing of his heart perhaps equalled that of mine. I was touched, speechless and disarmed, and less than ever in a condition to dissimulate anything, when he suddenly said: “Why have you been crying, Ginevra? I must know.” Raising my still tearful eyes towards him, and looking confidingly in his face, I replied: “I have been crying, Lorenzo, because I heard Donna Faustina is here, and that you had gone to see her.” He started, and, though accustomed to the variations of his mobile face, I was struck with the effect my words had produced. His face reddened, then turned paler than before, and for some moments he was incapable of making any reply, and even seemed to forget my proximity. He seated himself beside the table, and remained silent. I looked at him with amazement and anxiety. At length he said: “Who has told you anything about Donna Faustina, and what do you know of her?” “No one has told me anything about her, and all I know of her you have told me yourself by the very emotion you show at her name.” He was again silent for a moment, and then resumed in his usual tone, as if he had triumphed over all hesitation: “Well, Ginevra, even if you had not known of her being in Paris, or had never heard of her name or existence, I had resolved to speak to you about her this very evening. Listen to me. It is not, after all, a long story.” He had perfectly recovered his self‐control, and yet he continued with some effort: “It is not for you to be jealous of her, Ginevra. It is she who has reason to be jealous of you. She has done you no wrong; whereas, without suspecting it, you have done her a great and irreparable injury.” I opened my eyes with surprise. “It is not necessary to tell you when and where I met her for the first time, but perhaps it is right I should acknowledge that I was inspired with a passion for her such as a man willingly imagines he can never feel but once in his life.” I could not repress a start.