I have saved thee, Isabel di Pisani.

Perhaps you would ask me wherefore ?" Zicci paused, and smiled mournfully as he added: "My life is not that of others, but I am still human,--I know pity; and more, Isabel, I can feel gratitude for affection.

You love me; it was my fate to fascinate your eye, to arouse your vanity, to inflame your imagination.

It was to warn you from this folly that I consented for a few minutes to become your guest.

The Englishman, Glyndon, loves thee well,--better than I can ever love; he may wed thee, he may bear thee to his own free and happy land,--the land of thy mother's kin.