“Did I not love you enough?” she asks, looking into his face.  She gently disengages her hands from his grasp.  There is no reproach in her look, but infinite sorrow.  “Can I believe you?” And the soft blue eyes rest upon him full of pathetic pleading.

An expression of despair comes into Nobili’s bright face.  How can he answer her?  How can he satisfy her when he himself has shaken her trust?  Alas! would the golden past never come again?  The past, tinted with the passion of ardent summer?

“Believe me?” he cries, in a tone of wildest passion.  “Can you ask me?”

As he speaks he leans over her.  Love is in his voice—­his eyes—­his whole attitude.  Would she not understand him?  Would she reject him?

Enrica draws back—­she raises her hand in protest.

“Let me again”—­Nobili is following her closely—­“let me implore your forgiveness of my unmanly conduct.”

She presses her hands to her bosom as if in pain, but not a sound comes to her lips.

“Believe me,” he urges, “I have been driven mad by the marchesa!  It is my only excuse.”

“Am I?” Enrica answers.  “Have I not suffered enough from my aunt?  What had she to do between you and me?  Did I love you less because she hated you?  Listen, Nobili”—­Enrica with difficulty commands her voice—­“from the first time we met in the cathedral I gave myself to you—­you—­you only.”

“But, Enrica—­love—­you consented to leave me.  You sent Fra Pacifico to say so.”

The thought that Enrica had so easily resigned him still rankled in Nobili’s heart.  Spite of himself, there is bitterness in his tone.

Enrica is standing aloof from him.  The light of the lamp strikes upon her golden hair, her downcast eyes, her cheeks mantling with blushes.

“I leave you!”—­a soft dew came into Enrica’s eyes as she fixed them upon Nobili—­a dew that rapidly formed itself into two tears that rolled silently down her cheek—­“never—­never!”

Spite of the horrors of the past, these words, that look, tell him she is his!  Nobili’s heart leaps within him.  For a moment he is breathless—­speechless in the tumult of his great joy.

“Oh! my beloved!” he cries, in a voice that penetrates her very soul.  “Come to me—­here—­to a heart all your own!” He springs forward and clasps her in his arms.  “Thus—­thus let the past perish!” Nobili whispers as his lips touch hers.  Enrica’s head nestles upon his breast.  She has once more found her home.

A subdued knock is heard at the door.

“Sangue di Dio!” mutters Nobili, disengaging himself from Enrica—­“what new torment is this?  Is there no peace in this house?  Who is there?”

“It is I, Count Nobili.”  Maestro Guglielmi puts in his hatchet face and glaring teeth.  In an instant his piercing eyes have traveled round the room.  He has taken in the whole situation—­Count Nobili in the middle of the floor—­flushed—­agitated—­furious at this interruption; Enrica—­revived—­conscious—­blushing at his side.  The investigation is so perfectly satisfactory that Maestro Guglielmi cannot suppress a grin of delight.