Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 371: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

te AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE. Countess: “orelse you would not have come to the tribunal to spenk on bis behalf and endeavour to undo all the mischief you have done. And in- deed, if | were not convinced that you now bitterly, bitterly repent the part you bave performed, I should not be bere! ‘Tell me, Bianca—what was it that you whispered in bis ear as you rapidly passed him by P—what meant the billet which was delivered to you? Is there any hope P” “Oh there was the, Lucia!” cried the Princess: “but, alas! now it exists no longer! They were words of hope which I whispered ir his ear 4 “And if they be doomed to experience disap- pointment,” interjected Lucia, an expression of perfect agony sweeping over her beautiful coun: tenance, “how terrible for bim!—anod Oh! how fatel for bis unhappy mother!” “ His mother P” echoed the Princess. unfortunate parent !” “You may well speak of her in these terms, Bianca! She adores ber son—she knows him to be innocent of any willing complicity in the con- spiracy against Leghorn—I have told her every- thing ‘¢ | “What? you have seen her?” cried the Prin- cess, “Yes—I saw her just now at the house of General Germini. I was removed thither in a swoon:—the Signora De Vere was there a! the same time, and in a similar condition. She knew that ber son was condemned to death. I was first brought buck to cunsciousness; and Oh! never, never shall I forget the scene which followed when the unhappy mother herself regained her senses ! —Bianca,” added Lucia, with an impressiveness that was solemn and even awful to a cegree, “if you had witnessed that spectacle, it would have been almost puvishment enough for the crime which you committed in betraying the young man into the grasp of the law !” “Lucia!” exclaimed the Princess, with a wild- ness in her looks and accents, “1 am almost driven to that state of mind in which I feel that I could do something desperate !—as if I could commit @nother great crime in order to destroy the effects of the one which I first perpetrated! I must save that young man—or I shall go mad! I care not now fur tie satety of eitber body or soul, in com- parison with the security of that young life which 1 bave go iniquitously jeopardised |” “Ot what avail is this discourse, Bianca,” asked the Countess, shaking her head wournfully, “ if there be no plab oor project to which you can have recourse for the salvation of the Count P” **Let us go,” cried the Priucess, passionately, “and throw ourselves at the feet of General Germini!” “ Useless—utterly useless,” said Lucia. “Oh, the ** His \ | | | daughters—two amiable and excellent girls—have | already supplicated their father to use his power or influence: but he declared that he could not.” “Have you seen him I mean wy victim,” inquired the Princess, rapidiy, “ since the tribunal broke up?” “Wo,” answered the Countess. “Ho was at once conducted away to the military prison; and General Germini issued the strictest orders that nv one should be admitted to him, except a priest 363 knew that the unfortunate young nobleman’s mother had arrived in Sienna, he was constrained to make an exception in her favour. She there- fre is now with her son;—and Oh! my very brain reels as I picture to myself what must be the agony of the poor lady as she clasps in ber arms that son who she knows must in a few boura be a cold corpse! She must look upon his band- some countenance —and in the depths of her agouy she must cry out that it is impossible the life of one so beautiful and 60 young, s2 intelligent and so good, can this be hovering on the very verge of the grave!” * Do not talk thus, Lucia! do not talk thus !” cried Bianca, with nervous quickuess, as she again started up from her seat: “you drive me mad! Ob, that I could save him! Qh, that I could give him back in safety to that mother who is now distractedly straining him to her bosom!” “What hope had you just now?” inquired the Countess: “and how was it so suddenly dissi- pated 2?” The Princess explained in a few words how Raguso and Spezzi had got: possession of the cor- respondence of the late King of Sardinia—but how they had refused to give it up at the en- treaty of Stefano Voitura, Lucia had read the placard which had been so recently posted, and which so intimately regarded that correspondence : —she was therefore terribly afflicted when she learnt that Raguso and Spezzi positively refused to surrender it. “Leave me now, Lucia!” said her sister : “* go and see if you can be of any use to the Signira Da Vere, and if by any means you can obtain a knowledge of the prison’s internal arrangements through that lady. It may be serviceabla—for Voitura is resolved not to abandon every hope until the very last. Tell me that you do not altogether hate me, sister—and then leave me ” ** You are penitent, Bianca—and [ cannot hate you,” responded the Ovuntess: ‘ God grant that the life of this young man may yet be spared, go that you need not be crushed down to the vory earth with shame and remorse, and with a feeling as if——” “As if I wera a murderess!” added Bianca, thus finishing the sentence which her sister dared not completo, In a few moments the Princess was again elones but Signor Voitura soon returned — and he ine formed her that he had been enabled to learn no- thing which was in any way hopeful or satisfac- tory. There was something ominous in his looks ; and the Princess, after contemplating him for upwards of a minute, said, “ { am convinced that you have thoughts floating in your mind which you hesitate to reveal ?” “Yes, yes!” interrupted Stefano, speaking quickly and nervously; “a demon is struggling to get possession of my soul!” “What mean you?”’—and the Princess gazed with a species of consternation upon the young man, for she feared lest he were going mad. “ Do not question me! do not question me!” he said. “If 1 once give utterance to my thoughts —aye, if I once allow them to assume shape and substance, L sball be lost—lI feel that L shall be or clergyman of whatever denomination of religion | lost!” he himself might be. - But when the General | ee ’ “Stefano Voitura,” said the Princess, “if there EO OO SS A AA hs SS sn 5}