He seized my hands. "A thousand devils would not send me faster--
consider her in your arms." He went gaily out of my presence with a song
on his lips. I heard him singing it lustily down the street of the town,
and saw no more of him for some days.

Belviso was of great comfort to me during my time of anxiety; without
the faithful creature I should have run my feet off my legs and my wit
out of my head in futile search. He was much too tactful to remind me of
his warnings, but did not cease to show me all sorts of reasonable
grounds for Virginia's conduct, which had the effect of keeping his
first prognostication always before me. "The girl," he said--I repeat
the sum of his many discourses--"is evidently a good girl, and of strong
character. She is perfectly reasonable. She married you--I take that for
granted--when you were broken, beyond all prospect of repair. She now
finds you restored to your proper station in the world, and will be no
party to pulling you off your throne. She sees very well how that must
end--unhappily. How can she hope to be a companion of your companions, a
friend of your friends, a sharer in your amusements? Mistress she might
be, your toy; wife she can never be. That parade of her neck and bosom--
a desperate measure I assure you--shows to my mind that you will never
possess her again, but as you would not care to do. You assure me that
you married her, you name the church, describe the rites. All seems to
be in order; but the more I understand your Virginia in these late
proceedings, the less I understand that wedding in the Ghetto.
Everything I learn of her from her own acts convinces me of her good
sense; but of her acts as reported by you, Don Francis, I reserve my
judgment."

My heart and whole mind being now set upon finding her, my chagrin may