Alvise listened to her as if he had been struck down by lightning.  “Then let me die!” he exclaimed, “for without you life is odious to me.  You are just taking the first steps in this vale of tears; one day, however, your heart also will know the emotions of love, and then, then think of the unhappy Alvise; how great must have been his pangs, and how ardent his desire to terminate them!”

He now made an effort to go away; but Amalia held him, while she said, “Alas!  I seek not thy death:  live, but forget me from this fatal moment.”  “To forget thee is impossible; to love thee is death:  thy compassion would sweeten the last moments of my existence!” “Alvise!” exclaimed Amalia, weeping, “live, if only for my sake!” “Do you comprehend the force of these words?”

She trembled at the question; but the idea of her lover dying in despair overcame all her scruples.  “Yes, live for my sake,” she repeated in an under tone.

Unhappy beings! they were intoxicated with love, while the abyss was yawning beneath their feet.  A spy of the state inquisition, who was going his rounds, saw Alvise enter the palace, and recognised him.  Denounced before the dreadful tribunal, he was dragged thither that very morning.  Convicted of entering the abode of the French ambassador, he was desired to explain his motives tor so doing, but remained obstinately silent.  The members of the inquisition were confounded, accustomed as they were to see every thing yield before them, and reminded him that death would be the inevitable result of his silence.  “Death,” he replied, “had no terrors for me when I fought at Lepanto for the glory of my country and the salvation of Italy; on which day I proved, that under no circumstances could I ever become a traitor.  I call heaven to witness that I am not one.  But something dearer to me than life or fame now imposes silence on me.”

He was beheaded, and his body exposed between the two columns of the palace, with this inscription:  “For offences against the statute.”  The populace were speechless at the sight, while his companions in arms, his relations and friends, abandoned themselves to despair.  Venice presented one universal scene of mourning.

On the evening of the fatal day, Amalia stood upon the terrace of her palace, overlooking the grand canal.  She contemplated with pleasurable melancholy the calm and even course of the moon, whose modest light shone in the cloudless sky.  Her thoughts were of Alvise.  To divert them, she turned to gaze on a long procession of illuminated gondolas, from which she heard a strain of plaintive music, as if of prayers for the dead, A dreadful presentiment seized her heart; she inquired the purpose of the procession, and heard, with unspeakable terror, that it was the solemnization of the funeral rites of a Venetian nobleman, who had been beheaded for high treason.  “His name?” cried the breathless girl, in almost unintelligible accents:  “Alvise Sanuto.”