"Oh, pity, pity! for the gentle love of God!" she exclaimed; and added, with a shriek, "Ah! it is the bishop—again—again!"
Shuddering, she hid her face in her long hair, and began to weep as if her heart would burst. Approaching her, I laid my hand kindly on her soft shoulder, and said—
"Poor woman! be comforted; you are not entirely forsaken——"
"Begone!" she exclaimed, spitting upon me; "away, priests of hell, who murdered my love—my husband! Away, lest I tear you with my teeth! Ha! ha! madness is coming fast upon me! Oh, joy, Jesu Christo! my brain begins to wander."
"Preach on—of what? religion—and in this dungeon!—in which religion has consigned me to darkness, solitude, and horror. Oh! the soul-sinking misery I have endured these many, many weeks! My husband—who murdered him before my face?—A priest. Who would have dishonoured me?—A priest! Ha, away to your tyrant bishop! I will commune with God without the medium of wretches such as thee!"
"Lady, I am no priest," I replied, deeply touched by her misery and piercing voice. "I am a soldier—a gentiluomo in disguise. Trust me, and you may yet escape to be free and happy."
As I spoke, she rose from the floor, grasped my arm with convulsive energy, and gazed upon my face with a searching glance, as if she would read the inmost secrets of my breast: she passed her hand across my head and face, to assure herself my figure was not a vision; her whole arm was thus revealed, and, though attenuated, its purity was dazzling.
"Oh, signor! dear and good signor! oh, if you should deceive me!" she exclaimed, clinging to my hand and weeping bitterly. "Oh, if you should be but some emissary from the accursed bishop! At times he comes, like an evil genius, to offer me freedom. Ah! canst thou guess its price? I will not go with thee—away! leave me!"
"Can there be greater misery than that which you now endure?"
"No, no; there cannot! Who can live without hope? yet all fled from me! Oh, my Luigi! hadst thou been living, I had not been forgotten to perish thus! My sisters——"
"Luigi!" I reiterated, while gently removing the dishevelled masses of silky hair which veiled her features—a cry burst from me! I beheld the belle of Palermo, the nun of Crotona, the sister of Bianca, who had been so cruelly carried off by the sbirri of this infamous Petronio of Cosenza. "Francesca!" I exclaimed; "Francesca of Alfieri do you not remember me?"