"May the saints guard thee, gracious Lady!" replied the peasant;
"but oh! if a poor and worthless stranger might presume to beg a
minute's audience farther; am I so happy? the casement is not shut;
might I venture to ask--"

"Speak quickly," said Matilda; "the morning dawns apace: should
the labourers come into the fields and perceive us--What wouldst
thou ask?"

"I know not how, I know not if I dare," said the Young stranger,
faltering; "yet the humanity with which you have spoken to me
emboldens--Lady! dare I trust you?"

"Heavens!" said Matilda, "what dost thou mean? With what wouldst
thou trust me? Speak boldly, if thy secret is fit to be entrusted
to a virtuous breast."

"I would ask," said the peasant, recollecting himself, "whether
what I have heard from the domestics is true, that the Princess is
missing from the castle?"

"What imports it to thee to know?" replied Matilda. "Thy first
words bespoke a prudent and becoming gravity. Dost thou come
hither to pry into the secrets of Manfred? Adieu. I have been
mistaken in thee." Saying these words she shut the casement
hastily, without giving the young man time to reply.

"I had acted more wisely," said the Princess to Bianca, with some
sharpness, "if I had let thee converse with this peasant; his
inquisitiveness seems of a piece with thy own."