He laughed sternly, and said, "You do expect him to-night, then?"
"What is that to you?" she replied, pettishly. "Cousin, I will love whom I please."
Dianora, who was now angry in downright earnest, began to sing, and thrum the strings of her mandolin.
"Me non segni il biondo Dio, Me con Fille unisca amore—"
"Dianora!" exclaimed the young man, in a voice half mournful and half ferocious. "By the memory of other days, I conjure you to hear me! Think how, as children—as orphans—we lived, and played, and grew together—hear me!" His voice grew thick; but the irritated girl continued her song.
"E poi sfoghi il suo rigore Fato rio, nemico ciel."
"Cruel that thou art: thy wish will never be realized!" he exclaimed, fiercely. Still she continued:—
"Maledictions on you! Is it thus you treat me?"
Dianora laughed: he gazed intently upon her with fierce glistening eyes; his white lips were compressed with stern resolution, though agitation made them quiver—and that quivering was visible even in the moonlight.
"Dianora," said he, "for this time I will leave you; but when again we meet—_tremble_! Fury! I am not to be treated like a child!"
"Do not be so passionate, signor cousin. Madonna mia! You are quite the Horazio of Matteo Aliman’s novel!"
"Beware," he responded, with a dark and inexplicable scowl, "that your hand—the hand pledged as mine—is not bestowed upon your lover as Clarinia’s was. Farewell, fickle and cruel Dianora! Misfortune and love are turning my brain."
"Diavolessa!" he exclaimed, in accents of rage; and springing over the terrace, disappeared.
Dianora resumed her guitar; but she could sing no more: her assumed nonchalance quite deserted her. The instrument fell on the floor, and covering her face with her white hands she wept bitterly: for Giosué’s threats and Oliver’s absence terrified her.
The calm moon looked down on the dark forests and the snaky windings of the river, on whose glassy bosom here and there a red glow marked the watch-fires of the distant French picquets. No one was ascending the mountain side. In the villa, in the valley below, and on the hills around it, the most intense silence prevailed. Eagerly Dianora listened. Anon there rang through the welkin a shrill whistle—the whistle of Giosué; a faint cry succeeded: it rose from the river side, and floated tremulously upward through the still air. Another, and another followed: they were cries for succour! Her brain reeled—she sank upon her knees, and raised her hands to Heaven—her heart beat wildly—she panted rather than breathed. "O, God!" thought she; "if Oliver encounter the wild comrades of Giosué, what have I not to dread?"