"During my voyage back to Italy--after beholding the crescent planted on the walls where the Christian standard had floated for so many, many years--a storm overtook the ship; and yet the destroying angel gave me not the death I courted. This evening I once more set foot in Florence. From my own mansion Nisida is still absent: and no tidings have been received of her. Alas! is she then lost to me forever? Without tarrying even to change my travel-soiled clothes, I set out to make inquiries concerning another whom I love--and that other is thyself! Here, thanks to a merciful Heaven, my heart has not been doomed to experience a second and equally cruel disappointment; for I have found thee at last, my Flora--and henceforth my arm shall protect thee from peril." "How have I deserved so much kindness at thine hands?" murmured the maiden, again drooping her blushing head. "And oh! what will you think, Francisco--what will you say, when you learn that I was there--there in that cottage--with my aunt--when you called the last time to inquire if any tidings had been received of me----" "You were there!" exclaimed Francisco, starting back in surprise not unmingled with anger; "you were there, Flora--and you knew that I was in despair concerning thee--that I would have given worlds to have heard of thy safety,--I, who thought that some fiend in human shape had sent thee to an early grave?" "Forgive me, Francisco: forgive me!" cried Flora, bursting into tears; "but it was not my fault! On the night following the one in which the banditti stormed the convent, as I ere now detailed to your ears, I returned home to my aunt. When the excitement of our meeting was past, and when we were alone together, I threw myself at her feet, confessed all that had passed between thee and me, and implored her advice. "'Flora,' she said, while her tears fell upon me as I knelt, 'no happiness will come to thee, my child, from this attachment which has already plunged thee into so much misery. It is beyond all doubt certain that the relations of the count were the authors of thy imprisonment; and their persecutions would only be renewed, were they to learn that the count was made aware of your reappearance in Florence. For thy sake, then, my child, I shall suffer the impression of thy continued absence and loss to remain on the minds of those who may inquire concerning thee; and should his lordship call here again, most especially to him shall I appear stricken with grief on account of thee. His passion, my child, is one of boyhood--evanescent, though ardent while it endures. He will soon forget thee; and when he shall have learnt to love another there will no longer be any necessity for thee to live an existence of concealment.'