But now, as he closed, and, leaning on his breast, she felt the clasp of his protecting arms,—­when, in one holy kiss, the past was forgiven and the present lost,—­then there returned to her the sweet and warm hopes of the natural life, of the loving woman.  He was come to save her!  She asked not how,—­she believed it without a question.  They should be at last again united.  They would fly far from those scenes of violence and blood.  Their happy Ionian isle, their fearless solitudes, would once more receive them.  She laughed, with a child’s joy, as this picture rose up amidst the gloom of the dungeon.  Her mind, faithful to its sweet, simple instincts, refused to receive the lofty images that flitted confusedly by it, and settled back to its human visions, yet more baseless, of the earthly happiness and the tranquil home.

“Talk not now to me, beloved,—­talk not more now to me of the past!  Thou art here,—­thou wilt save me; we shall live yet the common happy life, that life with thee is happiness and glory enough to me.  Traverse, if thou wilt, in thy pride of soul, the universe; thy heart again is the universe to mine.  I thought but now that I was prepared to die; I see thee, touch thee, and again I know how beautiful a thing is life!  See through the grate the stars are fading from the sky; the morrow will soon be here,—­The morrow which will open the prison doors!  Thou sayest thou canst save me,—­I will not doubt it now.  Oh, let us dwell no more in cities!  I never doubted thee in our lovely isle; no dreams haunted me there, except dreams of joy and beauty; and thine eyes made yet more beautiful and joyous the world in waking.  To-morrow!—­why do you not smile?  To-morrow, love! is not to-morrow a blessed word!  Cruel! you would punish me still, that you will not share my joy.  Aha! see our little one, how it laughs to my eyes!  I will talk to that.  Child, thy father is come back!”

And taking the infant in her arms, and seating herself at a little distance, she rocked it to and fro on her bosom, and prattled to it, and kissed it between every word, and laughed and wept by fits, as ever and anon she cast over her shoulder her playful, mirthful glance upon the father to whom those fading stars smiled sadly their last farewell.  How beautiful she seemed as she thus sat, unconscious of the future!  Still half a child herself, her child laughing to her laughter,—­two soft triflers on the brink of the grave!  Over her throat, as she bent, fell, like a golden cloud, her redundant hair; it covered her treasure like a veil of light, and the child’s little hands put it aside from time to time, to smile through the parted tresses, and then to cover its face and peep and smile again.  It were cruel to damp that joy, more cruel still to share it.

“Viola,” said Zanoni, at last, “dost thou remember that, seated by the cave on the moonlit beach, in our bridal isle, thou once didst ask me for this amulet?—­the charm of a superstition long vanished from the world, with the creed to which it belonged.  It is the last relic of my native land, and my mother, on her deathbed, placed it round my neck.  I told thee then I would give it thee on that day when the laws of our being should become the same.”