"I comprehend the hint. But one word more," said I, in a husky voice, while my heart palpitated with anxiety at this relation. "Have you heard aught of the visconte?"
"Only what you must surely know, that he has fled to the mountains: to Francatripa, they say, for abducting a nun. Madonna mia! what can tempt handsome young men to run off with these pale and melancholy frights, when so many plump and pretty women, with good flesh on their bones, are dying for husbands both in town and country."
"Annina, your tongue is again at full gallop. The visconte, then, is not here?"
"No; and yet I could have sworn that I heard him singing a barcarole in the wolf’s chamber. God’s grace! ’tis a place of gloom and mystery. Poor, dear young man! I hope he may come to no harm in these perilous times, when the hills and woods are swarming with Frenchmen and wolves, idle sbirri, starving peasantry, and desperate robbers."
Stepping hastily and cautiously, I passed through the beautiful garden, which extended from the terraces to the southward.
There was now a rival in the way, whose superior military rank, and apparent wealth, besides his being Bianca’s countryman, made him sufficiently formidable to me: but as I remembered her artlessness, her trembling confusion when we exchanged our rings, and her burst of tenderness when we parted, and how she buried her face in the bosom of Luisa Gismondo, could I believe that she would so very soon prove false? Yet I had heard so much of the volatility of Italian girls, their faithlessness and coquetry, that the words of the waiting-woman fell like molten lead upon my heart.
Before advancing, like a prudent general I made a complete reconnoissance, and discovered Bianca walking with this redoubtable colonel, conversing and flirting through the folds of her black lace veil. She opened it only at times, when I obtained a glimpse of her pure and happy face: her bright eyes sparkling, her cheek glowing, and her pretty teeth shining like pearls in the sun, as its rays flashed between the waving branches and pendent golden flowers of the old laburnums. The long shady walk echoed with their voices, though they conversed in a low tone; and at that moment the sharpening of a handsaw would not have grated on my ears so painfully as did Bianca’s merry laughter at the jests of this confounded colonel.