He took the sweet-scented little paper in his hand and read it
through again. And his veins seemed to run with fire as he read.
Then for the first time he saw the postscript. It had escaped his
notice before. That old man had been informed that he had offered
marriage to the girl he called his daughter and had been accepted.
It might not be so easy to crush the little pink scorpion note, and
liberate himself from the writer of it. Proof? There might be no
legal evidence to show that he had ever made such a promise. Yet, to
have such an assertion made by Bianca and her father,--to have to
deny the fact, knowing it to be true!--he, Lamberto di Castelmare!
Great God! what was before him?
Then there was that woman, the servant, too. Might it not well be
that she, too, knew the promise he had made; overheard him possibly;
set to do so--likely enough! What was he to do?--what was he to do?
Something he must do quickly. The Cardinal Legate was expecting him
at one o'clock, and--would it be best to drive Bianca from his mind
till afterwards? Go to her he must in the course of the day!
Then, suddenly as a lightning-flash, he saw her before him as he had
gazed on her at the theatre overnight in her white night-dress,
uttering those words of passionate love--love which she told him was
all addressed to him,--which she was pining to speak to him again.
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