"The secret that my Giulia preserved so fearfully must be of another kind. Perhaps she was being persecuted--politically persecuted; there are highly-born women enough in Italy, who stand upon the list of the proscribed; and if she never spoke of politics it was, perhaps, in order to avert all such thoughts from me. In this way, too, it would be easiest to explain the appearance of that obnoxious stranger, who surely was a subordinate agent of her political party. "Certainly, I always asked myself again and again, whether love which withholds every confession excepting that of its own existence, which veils everything excepting its own intensity, is not an error? Love requires the whole man to be pledged, and may not appear with a mask, such as the Parisian ladies of simplicity carry before their faces. Otherwise it is but an adventure, and as an entrancing adventure I preserve that meeting in my memory; but I am weary of adventures, they have seduced me long enough, rendered my life disturbed and unsteady; precipitated my soul from one intoxication into another, but at last, after all, only left internal desolation behind. "And now this mysterious Giulia appears suddenly here, in my castle. Has she given up her secret--does a duty no longer bind her to maintain it? Has a turning-point in the circumstances of her life been attained? What brings her hither?--only love for me? My name, my place of abode, she knew--she has noted it better than I believed, as she seemed too indifferent to listen to it; but what does she seek here--what can she bring me but disappointment? The glamour of the magic-lantern is burned down; here are no evergreen islands, no myrtles and laurels--and a Venus Aphrodite would shiver with cold, if she had to rise out of these chilly waters. "To all these questions, which shall no longer disquiet me, I have the answer ready--my betrothal to Eva Kalzow--and this I will hasten, in order to oppose a decided fact as a defence against the adventure which seeks me here. I have broken with my past, and I will not that what is past should interfere any longer with my present life." Blanden had finished his recital; Doctor Kuhl, who had listened attentively, let the cigar in his hand die slowly out, as, after a rather long silence, he began to hum a popular air. "And you say absolutely nothing?" Blanden enquired of his friend. "I think," replied Kuhl, "a _principessa_ always remains a _principessa_--a Venus a Venus--in the North as in the South; I should have her turned out at the first opportunity, by your friend the Landrath, if she let herself be seen again in this district. She is a sort of beautiful pagan goddess--a sort of Bride of Corinth--and these ghosts are dangerous, especially for brides who are not so very distant, and whom the clergyman shall bless. But it has become late! One more dip in the sea, and then I will dream of your marble bride!" CHAPTER IX.