“My gracious Lord,” said Hippolita, “let
us submit ourselves to heaven. Think not thy
ever obedient wife rebels against thy authority.
I have no will but that of my Lord and the Church.
To that revered tribunal let us appeal. It
does not depend on us to burst the bonds that unite
us. If the Church shall approve the dissolution
of our marriage, be it so—I have but few
years, and those of sorrow, to pass. Where can
they be worn away so well as at the foot of this altar,
in prayers for thine and Matilda’s safety?”
“But thou shalt not remain here until then,”
said Manfred. “Repair with me to the castle,
and there I will advise on the proper measures for
a divorce;—but this meddling Friar comes
not thither; my hospitable roof shall never more harbour
a traitor—and for thy Reverence’s
offspring,” continued he, “I banish him
from my dominions. He, I ween, is no sacred
personage, nor under the protection of the Church.
Whoever weds Isabella, it shall not be Father Falconara’s
started-up son.”
“They start up,” said the Friar, “who
are suddenly beheld in the seat of lawful Princes;
but they wither away like the grass, and their place
knows them no more.”
Manfred, casting a look of scorn at the Friar, led
Hippolita forth; but at the door of the church whispered
one of his attendants to remain concealed about the
convent, and bring him instant notice, if any one
from the castle should repair thither.
CHAPTER V.
Every reflection which Manfred made on the Friar’s
behaviour, conspired to persuade him that Jerome was
privy to an amour between Isabella and Theodore.
But Jerome’s new presumption, so dissonant
from his former meekness, suggested still deeper apprehensions.
The Prince even suspected that the Friar depended on
some secret support from Frederic, whose arrival,
coinciding with the novel appearance of Theodore,
seemed to bespeak a correspondence. Still more
was he troubled with the resemblance of Theodore to
Alfonso’s portrait. The latter he knew
had unquestionably died without issue. Frederic
had consented to bestow Isabella on him. These
contradictions agitated his mind with numberless pangs.
He saw but two methods of extricating himself from
his difficulties. The one was to resign his
dominions to the Marquis— pride, ambition,
and his reliance on ancient prophecies, which had
pointed out a possibility of his preserving them to
his posterity, combated that thought. The other
was to press his marriage with Isabella. After
long ruminating on these anxious thoughts, as he marched
silently with Hippolita to the castle, he at last
discoursed with that Princess on the subject of his
disquiet, and used every insinuating and plausible
argument to extract her consent to, even her promise
of promoting the divorce. Hippolita needed little
persuasions to bend her to his pleasure. She
endeavoured to win him over to the measure of resigning
his dominions; but finding her exhortations fruitless,
she assured him, that as far as her conscience would
allow, she would raise no opposition to a separation,
though without better founded scruples than what he
yet alleged, she would not engage to be active in
demanding it.
