A door to the left opened.  There was a sound of voices talking.

“My honored marchesa,” the cavaliere was heard to say in his most dulcet tones, “in the state of your affairs, you cannot refuse.  Why then delay?  The day is passing by; Count Nobili is impatient.  Let me implore you to lose no more time.”

While he was speaking the marchesa entered the sala, passing close under the fresco of the vaguely-sailing ships upon the wall.—­Can the marchesa tell whither she is drifting more than these?—­She glanced round approvingly, then seated herself upon the sofa.  Trenta obsequiously placed a footstool at her feet, a cushion at her back.  Even the tempered light, which had been carefully prepared for her by closing the outer wooden shutters, could not conceal how sallow and worn she looked, nor the black circles that had gathered round her eyes.  Her dark dress hung about her as if she had suddenly grown thin; her white hands fell listlessly at her side.  The marchesa knew that she must consent to Count Nobili’s conditions.  She knew she must consent this very day.  But such a struggle as this knowledge cost her, coming so close upon the agitation of the previous night, was more than even her iron nerves could bear.  As she leaned back upon the sofa, shading her eyes with her hand, as was her habit, she felt she could not frame the words with which to answer the cavaliere, were it to save her life.

As for the cavaliere, who had seated himself opposite, his plump little person was so engulfed in an arm-chair, that nothing but his snowy head was visible.  This he waved up and down reflectively, rattled his stick upon the floor, and glanced indignantly from time to time at the marchesa.  Why would she not answer him?

Meanwhile a little color had risen upon her cheeks.  She forced herself to sit erect, arranged the folds of her dark dress, then, in a kind of stately silence, seemed to lend herself to listen to what Trenta might have to urge, as though it concerned her as little as that rose-leaf which comes floating in from the open door and drops at her feet.

“Well, marchesa, well—­what is your answer?” asked Trenta, much nettled at her assumed indifference.  “Remember that Count Nobili and Fra Pacifico have been waiting for some hours.”

“Let Nobili wait,” answered the marchesa, a sudden glare darting into her dark eyes; “he is born to wait for such as I.”

“Still”—­Trenta was both tired and angry, but he dared not show it; only he rattled his stick louder on the floor, and from time to time aimed a savage blow with it against the carved legs of a neighboring table—­“still, why do the thing ungraciously?  The count’s offers are magnificent.  Surely in the face of absolute ruin—­Fra Pacifico assures me—­”

“Let Fra Pacifico mind his own business,” was the marchesa’s answer.

“Nobili saved Enrica’s life last night; that cannot be denied.”

“Yes—­last night, last night; and I am to be forced and fettered because I set myself on fire!  I wish I had perished, and Enrica too!”