We said that Francisco had retired to rest somewhat early on the above-mentioned night, and the domestics, yielding to the influence of a soporific which Antonio, the faithless valet, had infused into the wine which it was his province to deal out to them under the superintendence of the head butler, had also withdrawn to their respective chambers. Nisida had dismissed her maids shortly before eleven, but she did not seek her couch. There was an expression of wild determination, of firm resolve, in her dark black eyes and her compressed lips which denoted the courage of her dauntless but impetuous mind. For of that mind the large piercing eyes seemed an exact transcript. Terrible was she in the decision of her masculine--oh! even more than masculine--character, for beneath that glorious beauty with which she was arrayed beat a heart that scarcely knew compunction, or that, at all events, would hesitate at nothing calculated to advance her interests or her projects. Though devoured with ardent passions, and of a temperament naturally voluptuous and sensual even to an extreme, she had hitherto remained chaste, as much for want of opportunity to assuage the cravings of her mad desires, as through a sentiment of pride--but since she had loved Wagner--the first and only man whom she had ever loved--her warm imagination had excited those desires to such a degree, that she felt capable of making any sacrifice, save one--to secure him to herself. And that one sacrifice which she could not make was not her honor: no, of that she now thought but little in the whirlwind of her impetuous, ardent, heated imagination. But, madly as she loved Fernand Wagner--that is, loved him after the fashion of her own strange and sensual heart--she loved her brother still more; and this attachment was at least a pure, a holy sentiment, and a gloriously redeeming trait in the character of this wondrous woman, of a mind so darkly terrible. And for her brother's sake it was that there was one sacrifice--a sacrifice of a tremendous, but painfully persevered-in project--which she would not make even to her love for Fernand Wagner! No, rather would she renounce him forever--rather would she perish, consumed by the raging fires of her own ungratified passions, than sacrifice one tittle of what she deemed to be her brother's welfare to any selfish feeling of her own! Wherefore do we dwell on this subject now? Because such was the resolution which Nisida vowed within her own heart, as she stood alone in her chamber, and fixed her eyes upon a document, bearing the ducal seal that lay upon the table.