"Oh! my sainted mother," thought Nisida within her breast, "I have not proved ultimately faithless to the solemn vows I pledged to thee upon thy death-bed! No; if for a time I yielded to the voluptuous idleness of love and passion in that now far off Mediterranean isle, yet, at last did I arouse myself to energy for young Francisco's sake, and I came back as soon as Heaven sent me the means of return to the place where my presence may best serve _his_ interests, and carry out _thy_ wishes! For, oh! when thou wast alive, my worshiped, my adored mother, how good, how kind, how affectionate wast thou toward me. And that tenderness of a mother for her offspring, ah! how well can I comprehend it now; for I also shall soon become a mother. Yes, Fernand! within the last week I have received the conviction that a being bearing thine image will see the light in due time; and the honor of the proud name of Riverola requires that our child must not be born of an unwedded mother! But wilt thou seek me out, Fernand? Oh! where art thou now? whither was the bark, in which I beheld thee last, wafting thee away?" And, all the while that these thoughts were agitating within her mind, Donna Nisida kept her eyes intently fixed on the portrait; but on reflecting a second time that should she fail to meet with Wagner soon again, or should he prove faithless to her, or if, indeed, he should nurse resentment and loathing for her on account of her unworthy conduct toward him on the island, and that her child should be born of an unwedded mother,--when, we say, she thought of this dread probability a second time, she burst into tears, and turned away from the contemplation of her mother's countenance. And Nisida so seldom wept, that when tears did escape the usually sealed up springs of her emotions, they came in torrents, and were most bitter and painful to shed. But she at length triumphed over her feelings, or rather, their outpourings relieved her; and now the remembrance of another duty which she had resolved upon performing the moment she should reach home again was uppermost in her mind. She contemplated a visit to the mysterious closet--the dark cabinet of horrible secrets, in order to ascertain whether curiosity had triumphed over Francisco's prudence, or if any one indeed had violated the loneliness of that chamber in which the late Count of Riverola, had breathed his last. She accordingly took a lamp in her hand, for it was now far advanced in the evening, and proceeded to the apartment where a father's dying injunctions had been given to her brother, and which that father and that brother had so little suspected to have been heard and greedily drunk in by her ears. The door of the room was locked; Nisida accordingly proceeded forthwith to her brother's chamber; and there, in a secret place where she knew he had been accustomed to keep papers or valuables, she found the key of the chamber