The Marchese was startled and utterly taken aback for a minute or two.  He was genuinely at a loss to interpret the cause or the meaning of the lady’s emotion.  His puzzled embarrassment did not, however, prevent him from seeing that she looked, if possible, more fascinatingly beautiful in her grief and her tears than he had ever before seen her.  And, again, despite what she had said, he knelt down by the side of the sofa, and gently removing her hands from before her face, murmured in her ear,—­

“Bianca, what is it—­what is moving you so?  Don’t you know that you are dear to me;—­that I would—­Don’t you know that I would do anything to be agreeable to you rather than give you any sorrow or pain?  What is there within my power that I would not do?  Bianca,—­ let me tell you—­let me speak the truth—­I cannot keep it in my own heart any longer—­I love you!  You have come to be all that I care for in the world.  Bianca, do you hear me?  For your love I would sacrifice all,—­everything in the world; I die without it; I must have it—­I must!  You have been loved before; but never as I love you—­never, never!  And, Bianca, I—­I—­Bianca, you are my first love--my only love.  Never, till I saw you, did I care to look on a woman for a second time; I never felt love.  But, when I saw you—­the first time—­the first hour—­Bianca, I must have your love or die; I thirst—­I hunger for it.  Since I have known you all my nature is changed; all my old life is flat and unmeaning, and without interest to me.  I care for none of the things I used to care for; all—­all has melted and slipped away from me, and nothing remains but one great devouring rage and passion—­my love for you!”

He had spoken like a torrent, which, for a long time dammed up, at last becomes too powerful for restraint, and bursts forth, overthrowing all obstacles with its headlong flood.

Bianca turned her face away from him towards the back of the sofa; but she slowly, and with an uncertain intermittent movement, drew his hand over to her lips, and pressed it against them.

A light came into the Marchese Lamberto’s eyes;—­a gleam almost, one would have said, rather fierce than fond, as he felt the pressure of her lips; and a shock as from an electric spark ran through all his body, making him quiver from head to heel.

“Bianca, Bianca!  You are mine—­you are mine!” he cried, pantingly, with his mouth close to her ear, and encircling her waist, as he spoke, with the hand which she had relinquished after she had kissed it in the manner that had been described.

But she sprang away from him, pushing him from her, by putting her flat hand against his forehead, with her face still turned towards the back of the sofa, away from him.

“No, no, no!” she cried, violently; “it cannot be, not so—­not so!  I cannot—­I cannot!”

“Bianca,” he cried, starting to his feet as if he had been stung; “what does this mean?  What am I to understand?  What is it you wish?  You know my position.  I tell you that there is no sacrifice that I am not willing to make.  I am rich; name what you would wish.”