This letter never reached me. Three months passed without my receiving
any tidings from Venice,--an interruption to our correspondence which
the sequel but too clearly explained. All my friend’s letters to me had
been kept back and suppressed. My emotion may be conceived when, in the
December of the same year, the following letter reached me by mere
accident (as it afterwards appeared), owing to the sudden illness of
Biondello, into whose hands it had been committed.
“You do not write; you do not answer me. Come, I entreat you, come on
the wings of friendship! Our hopes are fled! Read the enclosed,--all
our hopes are at an end!
“The wounds of the marquis are reported mortal. The cardinal vows
vengeance, and his bravos are in pursuit of the prince. My master--oh!
my unhappy master! Has it come to this! Wretched, horrible fate! We
are compelled to hide ourselves, like malefactors, from assassins and
creditors.
“I am writing to you from the convent of --------, where the prince has
found an asylum. At this moment he is resting on his hard couch by my
side, and is sleeping--but, alas! it is only the sleep of deadly
exhaustion, that will but give him new strength for new trials. During
the ten days that she was ill no sleep closed his eyes. I was present
when the body was opened. Traces of poison were detected. To-day she
is to be buried.
“Alas! dearest O------, my heart is rent. I have lived through scenes
that can never be effaced from my memory. I stood beside her deathbed.
She departed like a saint, and her last strength was spent in trying
with persuasive eloquence to lead her lover into the path that she was
treading in her way to heaven. Our firmness was completely gone--the
prince alone maintained his fortitude, and although he suffered a triple
agony of death with her, he yet retained strength of mind sufficient to
refuse the last prayer of the pious enthusiast.”
This letter contained the following enclosure: