are held to have ill-used and abandoned the niece of the Marchesa Guinigi.”  Nobili looked up; he was about to reply.  “Pardon me, count, I neither affirm nor deny this accusation,” continued Guglielmi, observing his movement; “I am giving no opinion on the merits of the case.  You have now espoused the lady.  If for a second time you abandon her, you will incur the increased indignation of the public.  Reconsider, I implore you, this last resolve.”

The lawyer’s metallic voice grew positively pathetic.

“I will not reconsider it!” cried Count Nobili, indignantly.  “I deny your right to advise me.  You have brought me into this room for no purpose that I can comprehend.  What have I in common with the advocate of my enemy?  I desire to leave Corellia.  You are detaining me.  Here is the deed of separation “—­Nobili drew from his breast-pocket the parchment he had perused so attentively in the chapel—­“it only needs the lady’s signature.  Mine is already affixed.  Let me tell you, and through you the Marchesa Guinigi, without that deed—­and my own free will,” he added in a lower tone, “neither you nor she would have forced me here to this marriage; I came because I considered some reparation was due to a young lady whose name has been cruelly outraged.  Else I would have died first!  If the lady I have made my wife desires, to make any amends to me for the insults that have been heaped upon me through her, let her set me free from an odious thralldom.  I will not so much as look upon one who has permitted herself to be made the tool of others to deceive me.  She has been treacherous to me in business—­she has been treacherous to me in love—­no, I will never look upon her again!  Live with her?—­by God! never!”

The pent-up wrath within him, the maddening sense of wrong, blaze out.  Count Nobili is now striding up and down the room insensible to any thing for the moment but the consciousness of his own outraged feelings.

As Count Nobili waxed furious, Maestro Guglielmi grew calm.  His busy brain was concocting all sorts of expedients.  He leaned his chin upon his hands.  His false smile gave place to a sardonic grin, as he watched Nobili—­marked his well-set, muscular figure, his easy movements, the graceful curve of his head and neck, his delicate, regular features, his sunny complexion.  But Nobili’s face without a smile was shorn of its chief charm:  that smile, so bright in itself, brought brightness to others.

“A fine, generous fellow, a proper husband for any lady in Italy, whoever she may be,” was Guglielmi’s reflection, as he watched him.  “The young countess has taste.  He is not such a fool either, but desperately provoking—­like all boys with large fortunes, desperately provoking—­and dogged as a mule.  But for all that he is a fine, generous-hearted fellow.  I like him—­I like him for refusing to be forced against his will.  I would not live with an angel on such terms.”  At this point Guglielmi’s eyes exhibited a succession of fireworks; his long teeth gleamed, and he smiled a stealthy smile.  “But he must be tamed, this youth—­he must be tamed.  Let me see, I must take him on another tack—­on the flank this time, and hit him hard!”