She and the chaplain had examined the
chamber, and found everything in the usual order. Manfred, though persuaded, like his wife, that the vision had been no
work of fancy, recovered a little from the tempest of mind into which so
many strange events had thrown him. Ashamed, too, of his inhuman
treatment of a Princess who returned every injury with new marks of
tenderness and duty, he felt returning love forcing itself into his eyes;
but not less ashamed of feeling remorse towards one against whom he was
inwardly meditating a yet more bitter outrage, he curbed the yearnings of
his heart, and did not dare to lean even towards pity. The next
transition of his soul was to exquisite villainy. Presuming on the unshaken submission of Hippolita, he flattered himself
that she would not only acquiesce with patience to a divorce, but would
obey, if it was his pleasure, in endeavouring to persuade Isabella to
give him her hand—but ere he could indulge his horrid hope, he reflected
that Isabella was not to be found. Coming to himself, he gave orders
that every avenue to the castle should be strictly guarded, and charged
his domestics on pain of their lives to suffer nobody to pass out. The
young peasant, to whom he spoke favourably, he ordered to remain in a
small chamber on the stairs, in which there was a pallet-bed, and the key
of which he took away himself, telling the youth he would talk with him
in the morning. Then dismissing his attendants, and bestowing a sullen
kind of half-nod on Hippolita, he retired to his own chamber. CHAPTER II. Matilda, who by Hippolita’s order had retired to her apartment, was
ill-disposed to take any rest. The shocking fate of her brother had
deeply affected her. She was surprised at not seeing Isabella; but the
strange words which had fallen from her father, and his obscure menace to
the Princess his wife, accompanied by the most furious behaviour, had
filled her gentle mind with terror and alarm. She waited anxiously for
the return of Bianca, a young damsel that attended her, whom she had sent
to learn what was become of Isabella. Bianca soon appeared, and informed
her mistress of what she had gathered from the servants, that Isabella
was nowhere to be found. She related the adventure of the young peasant
who had been discovered in the vault, though with many simple additions
from the incoherent accounts of the domestics; and she dwelt principally
on the gigantic leg and foot which had been seen in the gallery-chamber. This last circumstance had terrified Bianca so much, that she was
rejoiced when Matilda told her that she would not go to rest, but would
watch till the Princess should rise. The young Princess wearied herself in conjectures on the flight of
Isabella, and on the threats of Manfred to her mother. “But what
business could he have so urgent with the chaplain?” said Matilda, “Does
he intend to have my brother’s body interred privately in the chapel?”

“Oh, Madam!” said Bianca, “now I guess. As you are become his heiress,
he is impatient to have you married: he has always been raving for more
sons; I warrant he is now impatient for grandsons. As sure as I live,
Madam, I shall see you a bride at last.—Good madam, you won’t cast off
your faithful Bianca: you won’t put Donna Rosara over me now you are a
great Princess.”

“My poor Bianca,” said Matilda, “how fast your thoughts amble! I a great
princess! What hast thou seen in Manfred’s behaviour since my brother’s
death that bespeaks any increase of tenderness to me? No, Bianca; his
heart was ever a stranger to me—but he is my father, and I must not
complain. Nay, if Heaven shuts my father’s heart against me, it overpays
my little merit in the tenderness of my mother—O that dear mother! yes,
Bianca, ’tis there I feel the rugged temper of Manfred. I can support
his harshness to me with patience; but it wounds my soul when I am
witness to his causeless severity towards her.”

“Oh! Madam,” said Bianca, “all men use their wives so, when they are
weary of them.”

“And yet you congratulated me but now,” said Matilda, “when you fancied
my father intended to dispose of me!”

“I would have you a great Lady,” replied Bianca, “come what will. I do
not wish to see you moped in a convent, as you would be if you had your
will, and if my Lady, your mother, who knows that a bad husband is better
than no husband at all, did not hinder you.—Bless me! what noise is that! St. Nicholas forgive me! I was but in jest.”

“It is the wind,” said Matilda, “whistling through the battlements in the
tower above: you have heard it a thousand times.”

“Nay,” said Bianca, “there was no harm neither in what I said: it is no
sin to talk of matrimony—and so, Madam, as I was saying, if my Lord
Manfred should offer you a handsome young Prince for a bridegroom, you
would drop him a curtsey, and tell him you would rather take the veil?”

“Thank Heaven! I am in no such danger,” said Matilda: “you know how many
proposals for me he has rejected—”

“And you thank him, like a dutiful daughter, do you, Madam? But come,
Madam; suppose, to-morrow morning, he was to send for you to the great
council chamber, and there you should find at his elbow a lovely young
Prince, with large black eyes, a smooth white forehead, and manly curling
locks like jet; in short, Madam, a young hero resembling the picture of
the good Alfonso in the gallery, which you sit and gaze at for hours
together—”

“Do not speak lightly of that picture,” interrupted Matilda sighing; “I
know the adoration with which I look at that picture is uncommon—but I am
not in love with a coloured panel. The character of that virtuous
Prince, the veneration with which my mother has inspired me for his
memory, the orisons which, I know not why, she has enjoined me to pour
forth at his tomb, all have concurred to persuade me that somehow or
other my destiny is linked with something relating to him.”

“Lord, Madam! how should that be?” said Bianca; “I have always heard that
your family was in no way related to his: and I am sure I cannot conceive
why my Lady, the Princess, sends you in a cold morning or a damp evening
to pray at his tomb: he is no saint by the almanack. If you must pray,
why does she not bid you address yourself to our great St. Nicholas? I
am sure he is the saint I pray to for a husband.”

“Perhaps my mind would be less affected,” said Matilda, “if my mother
would explain her reasons to me: but it is the mystery she observes, that
inspires me with this—I know not what to call it. As she never acts from
caprice, I am sure there is some fatal secret at bottom—nay, I know there
is: in her agony of grief for my brother’s death she dropped some words
that intimated as much.”

“Oh! dear Madam,” cried Bianca, “what were they?”

“No,” said Matilda, “if a parent lets fall a word, and wishes it
recalled, it is not for a child to utter it.”

“What!