“Could I not see her?” asked the Duke.  “Yes, certainly you may see her,” returned the priest.  “You have only to come with me; and if the beauty and decorations of the child surprise you, I think the sight of the nurse cannot fail to produce an equal effect.”

The priest would then have taken the infant from the duke, but Alfonso would not let it go; he pressed it in his arms, and gave it repeated kisses; the good father, meanwhile, hastened forward, and bade Cornelia approach to receive the duke.  The lady obeyed; her emotion giving so rich a colour to her face that the beauty she displayed seemed something more than human.  The duke, on seeing her, remained as if struck by a thunderbolt, while she, throwing herself at his feet, sought to kiss them.  The duke said not a word, but gave the infant to the priest, and hurried out of the apartment.

Shocked at this, Cornelia said to the priest, “Alas, dear father, have I terrified the duke with the sight of my face? am I become hateful to him?  Has he forgot the ties by which he has bound himself to me?  Will he not speak one word to me?  Was his child such a burden to him that he has thus rejected him from his arm’s?”

To all these questions the good priest could give no reply, for he too was utterly confounded by the duke’s hasty departure, which seemed more like a flight than anything else.

Meanwhile Alfonso had but gone out to summon Fabio.  “Ride Fabio, my friend,” he cried, “ride for your life to Bologna, and tell Lorenzo Bentivoglio that he must come with all speed to this place; let him make no excuse, and bid him bring with him the two Spanish gentlemen, Don Juan de Gamboa and Don Antonio de Isunza.  Return instantly, Fabio, but not without them, for it concerns my life to see them here.”

Fabio required no further pressing, but instantly carried his master’s commands into effect.  The duke returned at once to Cornelia, caught her in his arms, mingled his tears with hers, and kissed her a thousand times; and long did the fond pair remain thus silently locked in each other’s embrace, both speechless from excess of joy.  The nurse of the infant and the dame, who proclaimed herself a Crivella, beheld all this from the door of the adjoining apartment, and fell into such ecstasies of delight that they knocked their heads against the wall, and seemed all at once to have gone out of their wits.  The priest bestowed a thousand kisses on the infant, whom he held on one arm, while with his right hand he showered no end of benedictions on the noble pair.  At length his reverence’s housekeeper, who had been occupied with her culinary preparations, and knew nothing of what had occurred, entered to notify to her master that dinner was on the table, and so put an end to this scene of rapture.