Tell me, that absence has not abated your love, tell me that you will rescue from death your unborn child, and its unhappy mother. I live in all the agonies of terror: every eye which is fixed upon me seems to read my secret and my shame. And you are the cause of those agonies! Oh! When my heart first loved you, how little did it suspect you of making it feel such pangs!

“Agnes.”

Having perused the letter, Lorenzo restored it in silence. The Marquis replaced it in the cabinet, and then proceeded.)