BATTISTA. Hark, my lord! CLAUDIA (_within_). Emilia! Emilia! My child! Where are you? MARINELLI. Go, Battista, and use your endeavours to dismiss her inquisitive companions. Scene VII. Claudia, Battista, Marinelli. _As_ Battista _is going_, Claudia _meets him_. CLAUDIA. Ha! You took her out of the carriage. You led her away. I know you again. Where is she? Speak, wretch. BATTISTA. Are these your thanks? CLAUDIA. Oh, if you merit thanks (_in a mild tone_), forgive me, worthy man. Where is she? Let me no longer be deprived of her. Where is she? BATTISTA. She could not be more safe, were she in heaven.--My master, here, will conduct you to her. (_Observes that some people are beginning to follow_ Claudia.) Back there! Begone! (_Exit, driving them away_.) Scene VIII. Claudia, Marinelli. CLAUDIA. Your master? (_espies_ Marinelli, _and starts_). Ha! Is this your _master_? You here, Sir--and my daughter here--and you--you will conduct me to her? MARINELLI. With great pleasure, madam. CLAUDIA. Hold! It just occurs to me. It was you, I think, who visited Count Appiani this morning at my house,--whom I left alone with him,--and with whom he afterwards had a quarrel? MARINELLI. A quarrel? That I did not know. We had a trifling dispute respecting affairs of state. CLAUDIA. And your name is Marinelli? MARINELLI. The Marquis Marinelli. CLAUDIA. True. Hear, then, Marquis Marinelli. Your name, accompanied with a curse----but no--I will not wrong the noble man--the curse was inferred by myself--your name was the last word uttered by the dying Count. MARINELLI. The dying Count? Count Appiani?----You hear, Madam, what most surprises me in this your strange address--the dying Count?--What else you mean to imply, I know not. CLAUDIA (_with asperity, and in a deliberate tone_). Marinelli was the last word uttered by the dying Count.--Do you understand me now? I myself did not at first understand it, though it was spoken in a tone--a tone which I still hear. Where were my senses that I could not understand it instantly? MARINELLI. Well, Madam, I was always the Count's friend--his intimate friend. If, therefore, he pronounced my name at the hour of death---- CLAUDIA.