“Ginevra,” he said, “this feud, does it exist between you and me?”

The girl smiled sadly and bowed her head.  Presently she raised it, and said, with a sort of pride:—­

“Oh, Luigi, our love must be pure and sincere, indeed, to give me strength to tread the path I am about to enter.  But it involves a happiness that will last throughout our lives, will it not?”

Luigi answered by a smile, and pressed her hand.

Ginevra comprehended that true love could despise all vulgar protestations at such a moment.  This calm and restrained expression of his feelings foreshadowed, in some sense, their strength and their duration.

The destiny of the pair was then and there decided.  Ginevra foresaw a cruel struggle, but the idea of abandoning Luigi—­an idea which may have floated in her soul—­vanished completely.  His forever, she dragged him suddenly, with a desperate sort of energy, from her father’s house, and did not leave him till she saw him reach the house where Servin had engaged a modest lodging.

By the time she reached home, Ginevra had attained to that serenity which is caused by a firm resolution; no sign in her manner betrayed uneasiness.  She turned on her father and mother, whom she found in the act of sitting down to dinner, a glance of exceeding gentleness devoid of hardihood.  She saw that her mother had been weeping; the redness of those withered eyelids shook her heart, but she hid her emotion.  No one touched the dinner which was served to them.  A horror of food is one of the chief symptoms which reveal a great crisis in life.  All three rose from table without having addressed a single word to one another.

When Ginevra had placed herself between her father and mother in the great and gloomy salon, Piombo tried to speak, but his voice failed him; he tried to walk, but he had no strength in his legs.  He returned to his seat and rang the bell.

“Pietro,” he said, at last, to the footman, “light the fire; I am cold.”

Ginevra trembled, and looked at her father anxiously.  The struggle within him must have been horrible, for his face was distorted.  Ginevra knew the extent of the peril before her, but she did not flinch.  Bartolomeo, meanwhile, cast furtive glances at his daughter, as if he feared a character whose violence was the work of his own hands.

Between such natures all things must be extreme.  The certainty of some impending change in the feelings of father and daughter gave to the worn and weary face of the baroness an expression of terror.

“Ginevra, you love the enemy of your family,” said Piombo, at last, not daring to look at his daughter.

“That is true,” she replied.

“You must choose between us.  Our vendetta is a part of our being.  Whoso does not share my vengeance is not a member of my family.”

“My choice is made,” replied Ginevra, calmly.

His daughter’s tranquillity misled Bartolomeo.