“Not before he has met Captain Weisspriess, who, by the way, has

obtained his majority. And, Lena, my dear, write to inform him that we

wish to offer him our congratulations. He will be a General officer in

good time.”

“Perhaps you forget that Count Ammiani is a perfect swordsman, Anna.”

“Weisspriess remembers it for me, perhaps;--is that your idea, Lena?”

“He might do so profitably. You have thrown him on two swords.”

“Merely to provoke the third. He is invincible. If he were not, where

would his use be?”

“Oh, how I loathe revenge!” cried Lena.

“You cannot love!” her sister retorted. “That woman calling herself

Vittoria Campa shall suffer. She has injured and defied me. How was it

that she behaved to us at Meran? She is mixed up with assassins; she is

insolent--a dark-minded slut; and she catches stupid men. My brother, my

country, and this weak Weisspriess, as I saw him lying in the Ultenthal,

cry out against her. I have no sleep. I am not revengeful. Say it, say

it, all of you! but I am not. I am not unforgiving. I worship justice,

and a black deed haunts me. Let the wicked be contrite and washed in

tears, and I think I can pardon them. But I will have them on their

knees. I hate that woman Vittoria more than I hate Angelo Guidascarpi.

Look, Lena. If both were begging for life to me, I would send him to the

gallows and her to her bedchamber; and all because I worship justice,

and believe it to be the weapon of the good and pious. You have a baby's

heart; so has Karl. He declines to second Weisspriess; he will have

nothing to do with duelling; he would behold his sisters mocked in the

streets and pass on. He talks of Paul's death like a priest. Priests

are worthy men; a great resource! Give me a priests lap when I need it.

Shall I be condemned to go to the priest and leave that woman singing?

If I did, I might well say the world's a snare, a sham, a pitfall, a

horror! It's what I don't think in any degree. It's what you think,

though. Yes, whenever you are vexed you think it. So do the priests, and

so do all who will not exert themselves to chastise. I, on the contrary,

know that the world is not made up of nonsense. Write to Weisspriess

immediately; I must have him here in an hour.”

Weisspriess, on visiting the ladies to receive their congratulations,

was unprepared for the sight of his letter to Carlo Ammiani, which Anna

thrust before him after he had saluted her, bidding him read it aloud.

He perused it in silence. He was beginning to be afraid of his mistress.

“I called you Austria once, for you were always ready,” Anna said, and

withdrew from him, that the sung of her words might take effect.

“God knows, I have endeavoured to earn the title in my humble way,”

Weisspriess appealed to Lena.

“Yes, Major Weisspriess, you have,” she said. “Be Austria still, and

forbear toward these people as much as you can. To beat them is enough,

in my mind. I am rejoiced that you have not met Count Ammiani, for if

you had, two friends of mine, equally dear and equally skilful, would

have held their lives at one another's mercy.”

“Equally!” said Weisspriess, and pulled out the length of his moustache.

“Equally courageous,” Lena corrected herself. “I never distrusted Count

Ammiani's courage, nor could distrust yours.”

“Equally dear!” Weisspriess tried to direct a concentrated gaze on her.

Lena evaded an answer by speaking of the rumour of Count Ammiani's

marriage.

Weisspriess was thinking with all the sagacious penetration of the

military mind, that perhaps this sister was trying to tell him that she

would be willing to usurp the piece of the other in his affections; and

if so, why should she not?

“I may cherish the idea that I am dear to you, Countess Lena?”

“When you are formally betrothed to my sister, you will know you are

very dear to me, Major Weisspriess.”

“But,” said he, perceiving his error, “how many persons am I to call out

before she will consent to a formal betrothal?”

Lena was half smiling at the little tentative bit of sentiment she had

so easily turned aside. Her advice to him was to refuse to fight, seeing

that he had done sufficient for glory and his good name.

He mentioned Major Nagen as a rival.

Upon this she said: “Hear me one minute. I was in my sister's bed-room

on the first night when she knew of your lying wounded in the Ultenthal.

She told you just now that she called you Austria. She adores our

Austria in you. The thought that you had been vanquished seemed like our

Austria vanquished, and she is so strong for Austria that it is really

out of her power to fancy you as defeated without suspecting foul play.

So when she makes you fight, she thinks you safe. Many are to go down

because you have gone down. Do you not see? And now, Major Weisspriess,

I need not expose my sister to you any more, I hope, or depreciate Major

Nagen for your satisfaction.”

Weisspriess had no other interview with Anna for several days. She

shunned him openly. Her carriage moved off when he advanced to meet her

at the parade, or review of arms; and she did not scruple to speak in

public with Major Nagen, in the manner of those who have begun to speak

together in private. The offender received his punishment gracefully,

as men will who have been taught that it flatters them. He refused every

challenge. From Carlo Ammiani there came not a word.

It would have been a deadly lull to any fiery temperament engaged in

plotting to destroy a victim, but Anna had the patience of hatred--that

absolute malignity which can measure its exultation rather by the

gathering of its power to harm than by striking. She could lay it aside,

or sink it to the bottom of her emotions, at will, when circumstances

appeared against it. And she could do this without fretful regrets,

without looking to the future. The spirit of her hatred extracted its

own nourishment from things, like an organized creature. When foiled

she became passive, and she enjoyed--forced herself compliantly to

enjoy--her redoubled energy of hatred voluptuously, if ever a turn in

events made wreck of her scheming. She hated Vittoria for many reasons,

all of them vague within her bosom because the source of them was

indefinite and lay in the fact of her having come into collision with an

opposing nature, whose rivalry was no visible rivalry, whose triumph

was an ignorance of scorn--a woman who attracted all men, who scattered

injuries with insolent artlessness, who never appealed to forgiveness,

and was a low-born woman daring to be proud. By repute Anna was

implacable, but she had, and knew she had, the capacity for magnanimity

of a certain kind; and her knowledge of the existence of this

unsuspected fund within her justified in some degree her reckless

efforts to pull her enemy down on her knees. It seemed doubly right that

she should force Vittoria to penitence, as being good for the woman, and

an end that exonerated her own private sins committed to effect it.

Yet she did not look clearly forward to the day of Vittoria's imploring

for mercy. She had too many vexations to endure: she was an insufficient

schemer, and was too frequently thwarted to enjoy that ulterior

prospect. Her only servile instruments were Major Nagen, and Irma, who

came to her from the Villa Ricciardi, hot to do her rival any deadly

injury; but though willing to attempt much, these were apparently able

to perform little more than the menial work of vengeance. Major Nagen

wrote in the name of Weisspriess to Count Ammiani, appointing a second

meeting at Como, and stating that he would be at the villa of the

Duchess of Graatli there. Weisspriess was unsuspectingly taken down to

the place by Anna and Lena. There was a gathering of such guests as the

duchess alone among her countrywomen could assemble, under the patronage

of the conciliatory Government, and the duchess projected to give a

series of brilliant entertainments in the saloons of the Union, as

she named her house-roof. Count Serabiglione arrived, as did numerous

Moderates and priest-party men, Milanese garrison officers and others.

Laura Piaveni travelled with Countess d'Isorella and the happy Adela

Sedley, from Lago Maggiore.

Laura came, as she cruelly told her friend, for the purpose of making

Victoria's excuses to the duchess. “Why can she not come herself?”

Amalia persisted in asking, and began to be afflicted with womanly

curiosity. Laura would do nothing but shrug and smile, and repeat

her message. A little after sunset, when the saloons were lighted,

Weisspriess, sitting by his Countess Anna's side, had a slip of paper

placed in his hands by one of the domestics. He quitted his post

frowning with astonishment, and muttered once, “My appointment!” Laura

noticed that Anna's heavy eyelids lifted to shoot an expressive glance

at Violetta d'Isorella. She said: “Can that have been anything hostile,

do you suppose?” and glanced slyly at her friend.

“No, no,” said Amalia; “the misunderstanding is explained, and Major

Weisspriess is just as ready as Count Ammiani to listen to reason.

Besides, Count Ammiani is not so unfriendly but that if he came so near

he would come up to me, surely.”

Laura brought Amalia's observation to bear upon Anna and Violetta by

turning pointedly from one to the other as she said: “As for reason,

perhaps you have chosen the word. If Count Ammiani attended an

appointment this time, he would be unreasonable.”

A startled “Why?”--leaped from Anna's lips. She reddened at her

impulsive clumsiness.

Laura raised her shoulders slightly: “Do you not know?” The expression

of her face reproved Violetta, as for remissness in transmitting secret

intelligence. “You can answer why, countess,” she addressed the

latter, eager to exercise her native love of conflict with this

doubtfully-faithful countrywoman;--the Austrian could feel that she had

beaten her on the essential point, and afford to give her any number of

dialectical victories.

“I really cannot answer why,” Violetta said; “unless Count Ammiani is,

as I venture to hope, better employed.”

“But the answer is charming and perfect,” said Laura.

“Enigmatical answers are declared to be so when they come from us

women,” the duchess remarked; “but then, I fancy, women must not be the

hearers, or they will confess that they are just as much bewildered and

irritated as I am. Do speak out, my dearest. How is he better employed?”

Laura passed her eyes around the group of ladies. “If any hero of yours

had won the woman he loves, he would be right in thinking it folly to be

bound by the invitation to fight, or feast, or what you will, within a

space of three months or so; do you not agree with me?”

The different emotions on many visages made the scene curious.

“Count Ammiani has married her!” exclaimed the duchess.

“My old friend Carlo is really married!” said Lena.

Anna stared at Violetta.

The duchess, recovering from her wonder, confirmed the news by saying

that she now knew why M. Powys had left Milan in haste, three or four

days previously, as she was aware that the bride had always wished him

to be present at the ceremony of her marriage.

“Signora, may I ask you, were you present?” Violetta addressed Laura.

“I will answer most honestly that I was not,” said Laura.

“The marriage was a secret one; perhaps?”

“Even for friends, you see.”

“Necessarily, no doubt,” Lena said, with an idea of easing her sister's

stupefaction by a sarcasm foreign to her sentiments.

Adela Sedley, later in exactly comprehending what had been spoken,

glanced about for some one who would not be unsympathetic to her

exclamation, and suddenly beheld her brother entering the room with

Weisspriess. “Wilfrid! Wilfrid! do you know she is married?”

“So they tell me,” Wilfrid replied, while making his bow to the duchess.

He was much broken in appearance, but wore his usual collected manner.

Who had told him of the marriage? A person downstairs, he said; not

Count Ammiani; not signor Balderini; no one whom he saw present, no one

whom he knew.

“A very mysterious person,” said the duchess.

“Then it's true after all,” cried Laura. “I did but guess it.” She

assured Violetta that she had only guessed it.

“Does Major Weisspriess know it to be true?” The question came from

Anna.

Weisspriess coolly verified it, on the faith of a common servant's

communication.

The ladies could see that some fresh piece of mystery lay between him

and Wilfrid.

“With whom have you had an interview, and what have you heard?” asked

Lena, vexed by Wilfrid's pallid cheeks.

Both men stammered and protested, out of conceit, and were as foolish as

men are when pushed to play at mutual concealment.

The duchess's chasseur, Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz, stepped up to his

mistress and whispered discreetly. She gazed straight at Laura. After

hesitation she shook her head, and the chasseur retired. Amalia then

came to the rescue of the unhappy military wits that were standing a

cross-fire of sturdy interrogation.

“Do you not perceive what it is?” she said to Anna. “Major Weisspriess

meets Private Pierson at the door of my house, and forgets that he is

well-born and my guest. I may be revolutionary, but I declare that in

plain clothes Private Pierson is the equal of Major Weisspriess. If

bravery made men equals, who would be Herr Pierson's superior? Ire has

done me the honour, at a sacrifice of his pride, I am sure, to come here

and meet his sister, and rejoice me with his society. Major Weisspriess,

if I understand the case correctly, you are greatly to blame.”

“I beg to assert,” Weisspriess was saying as the duchess turned her

shoulder on him.

“There is really no foundation,” Wilfrid began, with similar simplicity.

“What will sharpen the wits of these soldiers!” the duchess murmured

dolefully to Laura.

“But Major Weisspriess was called out of his room by a message--was that

from Private Pierson?” said Anna.

“Assuredly; I should presume so,” the duchess answered for them.

“Ay; undoubtedly,” Weisspriess supported her.

“Then,” Laura smiled encouragement to Wilfrid, “you know nothing of

Count Ammiani's marriage after all?”

Wilfrid launched his reply on a sharp repression of his breath, “Nothing

whatever.”

“And the common servant's communication was not made to you?” Anna

interrogated Weisspriess.

“I simply followed in the track of Pierson,” said that officer, masking

his retreat from the position with a duck of his head and a smile, tooth

on lip.

“How could you ever suppose, child, that a common servant would be

sent to deliver such tidings? and to Major Weisspriess!” the duchess

interposed.

This broke up the Court of inquiry.

Weisspriess shortly after took his leave, on the plea that he wished to

prove his friendliness by accompanying Private Pierson, who had to be on

duty early next day in Milan. Amalia had seen him breaking from Anna

in extreme irritation, and he had only to pledge his word that he was

really bound for Milan to satisfy her. “I believe you to be at heart

humane,” she said meaningly.

“Duchess, you may be sure that I would not kill an enemy save on the

point of my sword,” he answered her.

“You are a gallant man,” said Amalia, and pride was in her face as she

looked on him.

She willingly consented to Wilfrid's sudden departure, as it was evident

that some shot had hit him hard.

On turning to Laura, the duchess beheld an aspect of such shrewd disgust

that she was provoked to exclaim: “What on earth is the matter now?”

Laura would favour her with no explanation until they were alone in the

duchess's boudoir, when she said that to call Weisspriess a gallant man

was an instance of unblushing adulation of brutal strength: “Gallant for

slaying a boy? Gallant because he has force of wrist?”

“Yes; gallant;--an honour to his countrymen: and an example to some of

yours,” Amalia rejoined.

“See,” cried Laura, “to what a degeneracy your excess of national

sentiment reduces you!”

While she was flowing on, the duchess leaned a hand across her shoulder,

and smiling kindly, said she would not allow her to utter words that she

would have to eat. “You saw my chasseur step up to me this evening, my

Laura? Well, not to torment you, he wished to sound an alarm cry after

Angelo Guidascarpi. I believe my conjecture is correct, that Angelo

Guidascarpi was seen by Major Weisspriess below, and allowed to pass

free. Have you no remark to make?”

“None,” said Laura.

“You cannot admit that he behaved like a gallant man?” Laura sighed

deeply. “Perhaps it was well for you to encourage him!”

The mystery of Angelo's interview with Weisspriess was cleared the

next night, when in the midst of a ball-room's din, Aennchen, Amalia's

favourite maid, brought a letter to Laura from Countess Ammiani. These

were the contents:

“DEAREST SIGNORA,

“You now learn a new and blessed thing. God make the marriage fruitful!

I have daughter as well as son. Our Carlo still hesitated, for hearing

of the disgraceful rumours in Milan, he fancied a duty lay there for him

to do. Another menace came to my daughter from the madman Barto Rizzo.

God can use madmen to bring about the heavenly designs. We decided that

Carlo's name should cover her. My son was like a man who has awakened

up. M. Powys was our good genius. He told her that he had promised you

to bring it about. He, and Angelo, and myself, were the witnesses. So

much before heaven! I crossed the lake with them to Stress. I was her

tirewoman, with Giacinta, to whom I will give a husband for the tears of

joy she dropped upon the bed. Blessed be it! I placed my daughter in my

Carlo's arms. Both kissed their mother at parting.

“This is something fixed. I had great fears during the war. You do not

yet know what it is to have a sonless son in peril. Terror and remorse

haunted me for having sent the last Ammiani out to those fields,

unattached to posterity.

“An envelope from Milan arrived on the morning of his nuptials. It was

intercepted by me. The German made a second appointment at Como. Angelo

undertook to assist me in saving my son's honour. So my Carlo had

nothing to disturb his day. Pray with me, Laura Piaveni, that the day

and the night of it may prove fresh springs of a river that shall pass

our name through the happier mornings of Italy! I commend you to God, my

dear, and am your friend,

“MARCCELLINA, COUNTESS AMMIANI.

“P.S. Countess Alessandra will be my daughter's name.”

The letter was read and re-read before the sweeter burden it contained

would allow Laura to understand that Countess Ammiani had violated a

seal and kept a second hostile appointment hidden from her son.

“Amalia, you detest me,” she said, when they had left the guests for a

short space, and the duchess had perused the letter, “but acknowledge

Angelo Guidascarpi's devotion. He came here in the midst of you Germans,

at the risk of his life, to offer battle for his cousin.”

The duchess, however, had much more to say for the magnanimity of Major

Weisspriess, who, if he saw him, had spared him; she compelled Laura to

confess that Weisspriess must have behaved with some nobleness, which

Laura did, humming and I 'brumming,' and hinting at the experience he

had gained of Angelo's skill. Her naughtiness provoked first, and then

affected Amalia; in this mood the duchess had the habit of putting on a

grand air of pitying sadness. Laura knew it well, and never could make

head against it. She wavered, as a stray floating thing detached from an

eddy whirls and passes on the flood. Close on Amalia's bosom she sobbed

out: “Yes; you Austrians have good qualities some: many! but you choose

to think us mean because we can't readily admit them when we are under

your heels. Just see me; what a crumb feeds me! I am crying with delight

at a marriage!”

The duchess clasped her fondly.

“It's not often one gets you so humble, my Laura.”

“I am crying with delight at a marriage! Amalia, look at me: you would

suppose it a mighty triumph. A marriage! two little lovers lying cheek

to cheek! and me blessing heaven for its goodness! and there may be dead

men unburied still on the accursed Custozza hill-top!”

Amalia let her weep. The soft affection which the duchess bore to her

was informed with a slight touch of envy of a complexion that could be

torn with tears one minute, and the next be fit to show in public.

No other thing made her regard her friend as a southern--that is, a

foreign-woman.

“Be patient,” Laura said.

“Cry; you need not be restrained,” said Amalia.

“You sighed.”

“No!”

“A sort of sigh. My fit's over. Carlo's marriage is too surprising and

delicious. I shall be laughing presently. I hinted at his marriage--I

thought it among the list of possible things, no more--to see if that

crystal pool, called Violetta d'Isorella, could be discoloured by

stirring. Did you watch her face? I don't know what she wanted with

Carlo, for she's cold as poison--a female trifler; one of those women

whom I, and I have a chaste body, despise as worse than wantons; but

she certainly did not want him to be married. It seems like a

victory--though we're beaten. You have beaten us, my dear!”

“My darling! it is your husband kisses you,” said Amalia, kissing

Laura's forehead from a full heart.

CHAPTER XL

THROUGH THE WINTER

Weisspriess and Wilfrid made their way toward Milan together, silently

smoking, after one attempt at conversation, which touched on Vittoria's

marriage; but when they reached Monza the officer slapped his degraded

brother in arms upon the shoulder, and asked him whether he had any

inclination to crave permission to serve in Hungary. For his own part,

Weisspriess said that he should quit Italy at once; he had here to

skewer the poor devils, one or two weekly, or to play the mightily

generous; in short, to do things unsoldierly; and he was desirous of

getting away from the country. General Schoneck was at Monza, and might

arrange the matter for them both. Promotion was to be looked for in

Hungary; the application would please the General; one battle would

restore the lieutenant's star to Wilfrid's collar. Wilfrid, who had been

offended by his companion's previous brooding silence, nodded briefly,

and they stopped at Monza, where they saw General Schoneck in the

morning, and Wilfrid being by extraordinary favour in civilian's dress

during his leave of absence, they were jointly invited to the General's

table at noon, though not to meet any other officer. General Schoneck

agreed with Weisspriess that Hungary would be a better field for

Wilfrid; said he would do his utmost to serve them in the manner they

wished, and dismissed them after the second cigar. They strolled about

the city, glad for reasons of their own to be out of Milan as long as

the leave permitted. At night, when they were passing a palace in one

of the dark streets, a feather, accompanied by a sharp sibilation from

above, dropped on Wilfrid's face. Weisspriess held the feather up, and

judged by its length that it was an eagle's, and therefore belonging to

the Hungarian Hussar regiment stationed in Milan. “The bird's aloft,” he

remarked. His voice aroused a noise of feet that was instantly still.

He sent a glance at the doorways, where he thought he discerned men.

Fetching a whistle in with his breath, he unsheathed his sword, and

seeing that Wilfrid had no weapon, he pushed him to a gate of the

palace-court that had just cautiously turned a hinge. Wilfrid found his

hand taken by a woman's hand inside. The gate closed behind him. He was

led up to an apartment where, by the light of a darkly-veiled lamp,

he beheld a young Hungarian officer and a lady clinging to his neck,

praying him not to go forth. Her Italian speech revealed how matters

stood in this house. The officer accosted Wilfrid: “But you are not one

of us!” He repeated it to the lady: “You see, the man is not one of us!”

She assured him that she had seen the uniform when she dropped the

feather, and wept protesting it.

“Louis, Louis! why did you come to-night! why did I make you come! You

will be slain. I had my warning, but I was mad.”

The officer hushed her with a quick squeeze of her inter-twisted

fingers.

“Are you the man to take a sword and be at my back, sir?” he said;

and resumed in a manner less contemptuous toward the civil costume: “I

request it for the sole purpose of quieting this lady's fears.”

Wilfrid explained who and what he was. On hearing that he was General

Pierson's nephew the officer laughed cheerfully, and lifted the veil

from the lamp, by which Wilfrid knew him to be Colonel Prince Radocky,

a most gallant and the handsomest cavalier in the Imperial service.

Radocky laughed again when he was told of Weisspriess keeping guard

below.

“Aha! we are three, and can fight like a pyramid.”

He flourished his hand above the lady's head, and called for a sword.

The lady affected to search for one while he stalked up and down in

the jaunty fashion of a Magyar horseman; but the sword was not to be

discovered without his assistance, and he was led away in search of it.

The moment he was alone Wilfrid burst into tears. He could bear anything

better than the sight of fondling lovers. When they rejoined him,

Radocky had evidently yielded some point; he stammered and worked his

underlip on his moustache. The lady undertook to speak for him. Happily

for her, she said, Wilfrid would not compromise her; and taking her

lover's hand, she added with Italian mixture of wit and grace: “Happily

for me, too, he does. The house is surrounded by enemies; it is a reign

of terror for women. I am dead, if they slay him; but if they recognize

him, I am lost.”

Wilfrid readily leaped to her conclusion. He offered his opera-hat and

civil mantle to Radocky, who departed in them, leaving his military

cloak in exchange. During breathless seconds the lady hung kneeling at

the window. When the gate opened there was a noise as of feet preparing

to rush; Weisspriess uttered an astonished cry, but addressed Radocky as

“my Pierson!” lustily and frequently; and was heard putting a number of

meaningless questions, laughing and rallying Pierson till the two passed

out of hearing unmolested. The lady then kissed a Cross passionately,

and shivered Wilfrid's manhood by asking him whether he knew what love

was. She went on:

“Never, never love a married woman! It's a past practice. Never! Thrust

a spike in the palm of your hands drink scalding oil, rather than do

that.”

“The Prince Radocky is now safe,” Wilfrid said.

“Yes, he is safe; and he is there, and I am here: and I cannot follow

him; and when will he come to me?”

The tones were lamentable. She struck her forehead, after she had mutely

thrust her hand to right and left to show the space separating her from

her lover.

Her voice changed when she accepted Wilfrid's adieux, to whose fate in

the deadly street she appeared quite indifferent, though she gave him

one or two prudent directions, and expressed a hope that she might be of

service to him.

He was set upon as soon as he emerged from the gateway; the cavalry

cloak was torn from his back, and but for the chance circumstance of his

swearing in English, he would have come to harm. A chill went through

his blood on hearing one of his assailants speak the name of Barto

Rizzo. The English oath stopped an arm that flashed a dagger half its

length. Wilfrid obeyed a command to declare his name, his country,

and his rank. “It's not the prince! it's not the Hungarian!” went many

whispers; and he was drawn away by a man who requested him to deliver

his reasons for entering the palace, and who appeared satisfied by

Wilfrid's ready mixture of invention and fact. But the cloak! Wilfrid

stated boldly that the cloak was taken by him from the Duchess of

Graatli's at Como; that he had seen a tall Hussar officer slip it off

his shoulders; that he had wanted a cloak, and had appropriated it.

He had entered the gate of the palace because of a woman's hand that

plucked at the skirts of this very cloak.

“I saw you enter,” said the man; “do that no more. We will not have

the blood of Italy contaminated--do you hear? While that half-Austrian

Medole is tip-toeing 'twixt Milan and Turin, we watch over his honour,

to set an example to our women and your officers. You have outwitted us

to-night. Off with you!”

Wilfrid was twirled and pushed through the crowd till he got free of

them. He understood very well that they were magnanimous rascals who

could let an accomplice go, though they would have driven steel into the

principal.

Nothing came of this adventure for some time. Wilfrid's reflections

(apart from the horrible hard truth of Vittoria's marriage, against

which he dashed his heart perpetually, almost asking for anguish) had

leisure to examine the singularity of his feeling a commencement of

pride in the clasping of his musket;--he who on the first day of his

degradation had planned schemes to stick the bayonet-point between his

breast-bones: he thought as well of the queer woman's way in Countess

Medole's adjuration to him that he should never love a married

woman;--in her speaking, as it seemed, on his behalf, when it was but an

outcry of her own acute wound. Did he love a married woman? He wanted

to see one married woman for the last time; to throw a frightful look on

her; to be sublime in scorn of her; perhaps to love her all the better

for the cruel pain, in the expectation of being consoled. While doing

duty as a military machine, these were the pictures in his mind; and

so well did his routine drudgery enable him to bear them, that when

he heard from General Schoneck that the term of his degradation was to

continue in Italy, and from his sister that General Pierson refused

to speak of him or hear of him until he had regained his gold

shoulder-strap, he revolted her with an ejaculation of gladness, and

swore brutally that he desired to have no advancement; nothing but sleep

and drill; and, he added conscientiously, Havannah cigars. “He has

grown to be like a common soldier,” Adela said to herself with an

amazed contemplation of the family tie. Still, she worked on his behalf,

having, as every woman has, too strong an instinct as to what is natural

to us to believe completely in any eccentric assertion. She carried the

tale of his grief and trials and his romantic devotion to the Imperial

flag, daily to Countess Lena; persisting, though she could not win a

responsive look from Lena's face.

One day on the review-ground, Wilfrid beheld Prince Radocky bending from

his saddle in conversation with Weisspriess. The prince galloped up to

General Pierson, and stretched his hand to where Wilfrid was posted

as marker to a wheeling column, kept the hand stretched out, and spoke

furiously, and followed the General till he was ordered to head his

regiment. Wilfrid began to hug his musket less desperately. Little

presents--feminine he knew by the perfumes floating round them,--gloves

and cigars, fine handkerchiefs, and silks for wear, came to his

barracks. He pretended to accuse his sister of sending them. She in

honest delight accused Lena. Lena then accused herself of not having

done so.

It was winter: Vittoria had been seen in Milan. Both Lena and Wilfrid

spontaneously guessed her to be the guilty one. He made a funeral pyre

of the gifts and gave his sister the ashes, supposing that she had

guessed with the same spirited intuition. It suited Adela to relate this

lover's performance to Lena. “He did well!” Lena said, and kissed Adela

for the first time. Adela was the bearer of friendly messages to the

poor private in the ranks. From her and from little Jenna, Wilfrid heard

that he was unforgotten by Countess Lena, and new hopes mingled with

gratitude caused him to regard his situation seriously. He confessed to

his sister that the filthy fellows, his comrades, were all but too much

for him, and asked her to kiss him, that he might feel he was not one

of them. But he would not send a message in reply to Lena. “That is also

well!” Lena said. Her brother Karl was a favourite with General Pierson.

She proposed that Adela and herself should go to Count Karl, and urge

him to use his influence with the General. This, however, Adela was

disinclined to do; she could not apparently say why. When Lena went to

him, she was astonished to hear that he knew every stage of her advance

up to the point of pardoning her erratic lover; and even knew as much

as that Wilfrid's dejected countenance on the night when Vittoria's

marriage was published in the saloon of the duchess on Lake Como, had

given her fresh offence. He told her that many powerful advocates were

doing their best for the down-fallen officer, who, if he were shot, or

killed, would still be gazetted an officer. “A nice comfort!” said Lena,

and there was a rallying exchange of banter between them, out of

which she drew the curious discovery that Karl had one of his strong

admirations for the English lady. “Surely!” she said to herself; “I

thought they were all so cold.” And cold enough the English lady seemed

when Lena led to the theme. “Do I admire your brother, Countess Lena?

Oh! yes;--in his uniform exceedingly.”

Milan was now full. Wilfrid had heard from Adela that Count Ammiani

and his bride were in the city and were strictly watched. Why did not

conspirators like these two take advantage of the amnesty? Why were they

not in Rome? Their Chief was in Rome; their friends were in Rome. Why

were they here? A report, coming from Countess d'Isorella, said that

they had quarrelled with their friends, and were living for love alone.

As she visited the Lenkensteins--high Austrians--some believed her; and

as Count Ammiani and his bride had visited the Duchess of Graatli, it

was thought possible. Adela had refused to see Vittoria; she did not

even know the house where Count Ammiani dwelt; so Wilfrid was reduced

to find it for himself. Every hour when off duty the miserable

sentimentalist wandered in that direction, nursing the pangs of a

delicious tragedy of emotions; he was like a drunkard going to his

draught. As soon as he had reached the head of the Corso, he wheeled

and marched away from it with a lofty head, internally grinning at his

abject folly, and marvelling at the stiff figure of an Austrian common

soldier which flashed by the windows as he passed. He who can unite

prudence and madness, sagacity and stupidity, is the true buffoon; nor,

vindictive as were his sensations, was Wilfrid unaware of the contrast

of Vittoria's soul to his own, that was now made up of antics. He could

not endure the tones of cathedral music; but he had at times to kneel

and listen to it, and be overcome.

On a night in the month of February, a servant out of livery addressed

him at the barrack-gates, requesting him to go at once to a certain

hotel, where his sister was staying. He went, and found there, not his

sister, but Countess Medole. She smiled at his confusion. Both she and

the prince, she said, had spared no effort to get him reinstated in

his rank; but his uncle continually opposed the endeavours of all his

friends to serve him. This interview was dictated by the prince's wish,

so that he might know them to be a not ungrateful couple. Wilfrid's

embarrassment in standing before a lady in private soldier's uniform,

enabled him with very peculiar dignity to declare that his present

degradation, from the General's point of view, was a just punishment,

and he did not crave to have it abated. She remarked that it must end

soon. He made a dim allusion to the littleness of humanity. She laughed.

“It's the language of an unfortunate lover,” she said, and straightway,

in some undistinguished sentence, brought the name of Countess

Alessandra Ammiani tingling to his ears. She feared that she could

not be of service to him there; “at least, not just yet,” the lady

astonished him by remarking. “I might help you to see her. If you take

my advice you will wait patiently. You know us well enough to understand

what patience will do. She is supposed to have married for love. Whether

she did or not, you must allow a young married woman two years' grace.”

The effect of speech like this, and more in a similar strain of frank

corruptness, was to cleanse Wilfrid's mind, and nerve his heart, and he

denied that he had any desire to meet the Countess Ammiani, unless he

could perform a service that would be agreeable to her.

The lady shrugged. “Well, that is one way. She has enemies, of course.”

Wilfrid begged for their names.

“Who are they not?” she replied. “Chiefly women, it is true.”

He begged most earnestly for their names; he would have pleaded

eloquently, but dreaded that the intonation of one in his low garb might

be taken for a whine; yet he ventured to say that if the countess did

imagine herself indebted to him in a small degree, the mention of two

or three of the names of Countess Alessandra Ammiani's enemies would

satisfy him.

“Countess Lena von Lenkenstein, Countess Violetta d'Isorella, signorina

Irma di Karski.”

She spoke the names out like a sum that she was paying down in gold

pieces, and immediately rang the bell for her servant and carriage,

as if she had now acquitted her debt. Wilfrid bowed himself forth. A

resolution of the best kind, quite unconnected with his interests or his

love, urged him on straight to the house of the Lenkensteins, where he

sent up his name to Countess Lena. After a delay of many minutes, Count

Lenkenstein accompanied by General Pierson came down, both evidently

affecting not to see him. The General barely acknowledged his salute.

“Hey! Kinsky!” the count turned in the doorway to address him by

the title of his regiment; “here; show me the house inhabited by the

Countess d'Isorella during the revolt.”

Wilfrid followed them to the end of the street, pointing his finger to

the house, and saluted.

“An Englishman did me the favour--from pure eccentricity, of course--to

save my life on that exact spot, General,” said the count. “Your

countrymen usually take the other side; therefore I mention it.”

As Wilfrid was directing his steps to barracks (the little stir to

his pride superinduced by these remarks having demoralized him), Count

Lenkenstein shouted: “Are you off duty?” Wilfrid had nearly replied that

he was, but just mastered himself in time. “No, indeed!” said the count,

“when you have sent up your name to a lady.” This time General Pierson

put two fingers formally to his cap, and smiled grimly at the private's

rigid figure of attention. If Wilfrid's form of pride had consented

to let him take delight in the fact, he would have seen at once that

prosperity was ready to shine on him. He nursed the vexations much too

tenderly to give prosperity a welcome; and even when along with Lena,

and convinced of her attachment, and glad of it, he persisted in driving

at the subject which had brought him to her house; so that the veil

of opening commonplaces, pleasant to a couple in their position, was

plucked aside. His business was to ask her why she was the enemy of

Countess Alessandra Ammiani, and to entreat her that she should not seek

to harm that lady. He put it in a set speech. Lena felt that it ought to

have come last, not in advance of their reconciliation. “I will answer

you,” she said. “I am not the Countess Alessandra Ammiani's enemy.”

He asked her: “Could you be her friend?”

“Does a woman who has a husband want a friend?”

“I could reply, countess, in the case of a man who has a bride.”

By dint of a sweet suggestion here and there, love-making crossed the

topic. It appeared that General Pierson had finally been attacked, on

the question of his resistance to every endeavour to restore Wilfrid to

his rank, by Count Lenkenstein, and had barely spoken the words--that if

Wilfrid came to Countess Lena of his own free-will, unprompted, to beg

her forgiveness, he would help to reinstate him, when Wilfrid's name was

brought up by the chasseur. All had laughed, “Even I,” Lena confessed.

And then the couple had a pleasant petitish wrangle;--he was requested

to avow that he had came solely, or principally, to beg forgiveness of

her, who had such heaps to forgive. No; on his honour, he had come for

the purpose previously stated, and on the spur of his hearing that she

was Countess Alessandra Ammiani's deadly enemy. “Could you believe that

I was?” said Lena; “why should I be?” and he coloured like a lad, which

sign of an ingenuousness supposed to belong to her set, made Lena bold

to take the upper hand. She frankly accused herself of jealousy, though

she did not say of whom. She almost admitted that when the time for

reflection came, she should rejoice at his having sought her to plead

for his friend rather than for her forgiveness. In the end, but with

a drooping pause of her bright swift look at Wilfrid, she promised to

assist him in defeating any machinations against Vittoria's happiness,

and to keep him informed of Countess d'Isorella's movements. Wilfrid

noticed the withdrawing fire of the look. “By heaven! she doubts me

still,” he ejaculated inwardly.

These half-comic little people have their place in the history of higher

natures and darker destinies. Wilfrid met Pericles, from whom he heard

that Vittoria, with her husband's consent, had pledged herself to sing

publicly. “It is for ze Lombard widows,” Pericles apologized on her

behalf; “but, do you see, I only want a beginning. She thaerst for ze

stage; and it is, after marriage, a good sign. Oh! you shall hear, my

friend; marriage have done her no hurt--ze contrary! You shall hear

Hymen--Cupids--not a cold machine; it is an organ alaif! She has privily

sung to her Pericles, and ser, and if I wake not very late on Judgement.

Day, I shall zen hear--but why should I talk poetry to you, to make you

laugh? I have a divin' passion for zat woman. Do I not give her to a

husband, and say, Be happy! onnly sing! Be kissed! be hugged! only give

Pericles your voice. By Saint Alexandre! it is to say to ze heavens,

Move on your way, so long as you drop rain on us r--you smile--you look

kind.”

Pericles accompanied him into a caffe, the picture of an enamoured happy

man. He waived aside contemptuously all mention of Vittoria's having

enemies. She had them when, as a virgin, she had no sense. As a woman,

she had none, for she now had sense. Had she not brought her husband to

be sensible, so that they moved together in Milanese society, instead

of stupidly fighting at Rome? so that what he could not take to

himself--the marvellous voice--he let bless the multitude! “She is the

Beethoven of singers,” Pericles concluded. Wilfrid thought so on the

night when she sang to succour the Lombard widows. It was at a concert,

richly thronged; ostentatiously thronged with Austrian uniforms.

He fancied that he could not bear to look on her. He left the house

thinking that to hear her and see her and feel that she was one upon the

earth, made life less of a burden.

This evening was rendered remarkable by a man's calling out, “You are a

traitress!” while Vittoria stood before the seats. She became pale, and

her eyelids closed. No thinness was subsequently heard in her voice.

The man was caught as he strove to burst through the crowd at the

entrance-door, and proved to be a petty bookseller of Milan, by name

Sarpo, known as an orderly citizen. When taken he was inflamed with

liquor. Next day the man was handed from the civil to the military

authorities, he having confessed to the existence of a plot in the city.

Pericles came fuming to Wilfrid's quarters. Wilfrid gathered from him

that Sarpo's general confession had been retracted: it was too foolish

to snare the credulity of Austrian officials. Sarpo stated that he had

fabricated the story of a plot, in order to escape the persecutions of a

terrible man, and find safety in prison lodgings vender Government. The

short confinement for a civic offence was not his idea of safety; he

desired to be sheltered by Austrian soldiers and a fortress, and said

that his torments were insupportable while Barto Rizzo was at large.

This infamous Republican had latterly been living in his house, eating

his bread, and threatening death to him unless he obeyed every command.

Sarpo had undertaken his last mission for the purpose of supplying his

lack of resolution to release himself from his horrible servitude by any

other means; not from personal animosity toward the Countess Alessandra

Ammiani, known as la Vittoria. When seized, fear had urged him to

escape. Such was his second story. The points seemed irreconcilable

to those who were not in the habit of taking human nature into their

calculations of a possible course of conduct; even Wilfrid, though he

was aware that Barto Rizzo hated Vittoria inveterately, imagined Sarpo's

first lie to have necessarily fathered a second. But the second story

was true: and the something like lover's wrath with which the outrage

to Vittoria fired Pericles, prompted him to act on it as truth. He

told Wilfrid that he should summon Barto Rizzo to his presence. As

the Government was unable to exhibit so much power, Wilfrid looked

sarcastic; whereupon Pericles threw up his chin crying: “Oh! you shall

know my resources. Now, my friend, one bit of paper, and a messenger,

and zen home to my house, to Tokay and cigarettes, and wait to see.”

He remarked after pencilling a few lines, “Countess d'Isorella is her

enemy? hein!”

“Why, you wouldn't listen to me when I told you,” said Wilfrid.

“No,” Pericles replied while writing and humming over his pencil; “my

ear is a pelican-pouch, my friend; it--and Irma is her enemy also?--it

takes and keeps, but does not swallow till it wants. I shall hear you,

and I shall hear my Sandra Vittoria, and I shall not know you have

spoken, when by-and-by I tinkle, tinkle, a bell of my brain, and your

word walks in,--'quite well?'--'very well! '--sit down'--'if it is

ze same to you, I prefer to stand'--'good; zen I examine you.'

My motto:--'Time opens ze gates: my system: 'it is your doctor of

regiment's system when your twelve, fifteen, forty recruits strip to

him:--'Ah! you, my man, have varicose vein: no soldier in our regiment,

you!' So on. Perhaps I am not intelligible; but, hear zis. I speak not

often of my money; but I say--it is in your ear--a man of millions, he

is a king!” The Greek jumped up and folded a couple of notes. “I will

not have her disturbed. Let her sing now and awhile to Pericles and his

public: and to ze Londoners, wiz your permission, Count Ammiani, one

saison. I ask no more, and I am satisfied, and I endow your oldest

child, signor Conte--it is said! For its mama was a good girl, a brave

girl; she troubled Pericles, because he is an intellect; but he forgives

when he sees sincerity--rare zing! Sincerity and genius: it may be zey

are as man and wife in a bosom. He forgives; it is not onnly voice he

craves, but a soul, and Sandra, your countess, she has a soul--I am not

a Turk. I say, it is a woman in whom a girl I did see a soul! A woman

when she is married, she is part of ze man; but a soul, it is for ever

alone, apart, confounded wiz nobody! For it I followed Sandra, your

countess. It was a sublime devotion of a dog. Her voice tsrilled, her

soul possessed me, Your countess is my Sandra still. I shall be pleased

if child-bearing trouble her not more zan a very little; but, enfin! she

is married, and you and I, my friend Wilfrid, we must accept ze decree,

and say, no harm to her out of ze way of nature, by Saint Nicolas! or

any what saint you choose for your invocation. Come along. And speed my

letters by one of your militaires at once off. Are Pericles' millions

gold of bad mint? If so, he is an incapable. He presumes it is not so.

Come along; we will drink to her in essence of Tokay. You shall witness

two scenes. Away!”

Wilfrid was barely to be roused from his fit of brooding into which

Pericles had thrown him. He sent the letters, and begged to be left to

sleep. The image of Vittoria seen through this man's mind was new, and

brought a new round of torments. “The devil take you,” he cried when

Pericles plucked at his arm, “I've sent the letters; isn't that enough?”

He was bitterly jealous of the Greek's philosophic review of the

conditions of Vittoria's marriage; for when he had come away from the

concert, not a thought of her being a wife had clouded his resignation

to the fact. He went with Pericles, nevertheless, and was compelled to

acknowledge the kindling powers of the essence of Tokay. “Where do you

get this stuff?” he asked several times. Pericles chattered of England,

and Hagar's 'Addio,' and 'Camilla.' What cabinet operas would he not

give! What entertainments! Could an emperor offer such festivities to

his subjects? Was a Field Review equal to Vittoria's voice? He stung

Wilfrid's ears by insisting on the mellowed depth, the soft human

warmth, which marriage had lent to the voice. At a late hour his valet

announced Countess d'Isorella. “Did I not say so?” cried Pericles, and

corrected himself: “No, I did not say so; it was a surprise to you, my

friend. You shall see; you shall hear. Now you shall see what a friend

Pericles can be when a person satisfy him.” He pushed Wilfrid into his

dressing-room, and immediately received the countess with an outburst

of brutal invectives--pulling her up and down the ranked regiment of

her misdeeds, as it were. She tried dignity, tried anger, she affected

amazement, she petitioned for the heads of his accusations, and, as

nothing stopped him, she turned to go. Pericles laughed when she

had left the room. Irma di Karski was announced the next minute, and

Countess d'Isorella re-appeared beside her. Irma had a similar greeting.

“I am lost,” she exclaimed. “Yes, you are lost,” said Pericles; “a word

from me, and the back of the public is humped at you--ha! contessa,

you touched Mdlle. Irma's hand? She is to be on her guard, and never to

think she is lost till down she goes? You are a more experienced woman!

I tell you I will have no nonsense. I am Countess Alessandra Ammiani's

friend. You two, you women, are her enemies. I will ruin you both. You

would prevent her singing in public places--you, Countess d'Isorella,

because you do not forgive her marriage to Count Ammiani; you, Irma,

to spite her for her voice. You would hiss her out of hearing, you two

miserable creatures. Not another soldo for you! Not one! and to-morrow,

countess, I will see my lawyer. Irma, begone, and shriek to your

wardrobe! Countess d'Isorella, I have the extreme honour.”

Wilfrid marvelled to hear this titled and lovely woman speaking almost

in tones of humility in reply to such outrageous insolence. She craved

a private interview. Irma was temporarily expelled, and then Violetta

stooped to ask what the Greek's reason for his behaviour could be. She

admitted that it was in his power to ruin her, as far as money went.

“Perhaps a little farther,” said Pericles; “say two steps. If one is

on a precipice, two steps count for something.” But, what had she done?

Pericles refused to declare it. This set her guessing with a charming

naivete. Pericles called Irma back to assist her in the task, and

quitted them that they might consult together and hit upon the right

thing. His object was to send his valet for Luigi Saracco. He had

seen that no truth could be extracted from these women, save forcibly.

Unaware that he had gone out, Wilfrid listened long enough to hear

Irma say, between sobs: “Oh! I shall throw myself upon his mercy. Oh,

Countess d'Isorella, why did you lead me to think of vengeance! I am

lost! He knows everything. Oh, what is it to me whether she lives with

her husband! Let them go on plotting. I am not the Government. I am sure

I don't much dislike her. Yes, I hate her, but why should I hurt myself?

She will wear those jewels on her forehead; she will wear that necklace

with the big amethysts, and pretend she's humble because she doesn't

carry earrings, when her ears have never been pierced! I am lost! Yes,

you may say, lookup! I am only a poor singer, and he can ruin me. Oh!

Countess d'Isorella, oh! what a fearful punishment. If Countess Anna

should betray Count Ammiani to-night, nothing, nothing, will save me.

I will confess. Let us both be beforehand with her--or you, it does not

matter for a noble lady.”

“Hush!” said Violetta. “What dreadful fool is this I sit with? You may

have done what you think of doing already.”

She walked to the staircase door, and to that of the suite. An

honourable sentiment, conjoined to the knowledge that he had heard

sufficient, induced Wilfrid to pass on into the sleeping apartment a

moment or so before Violetta took this precaution. The potent liquor of

Pericles had deprived him of consecutive ideas; he sat nursing a thunder

in his head, imagining it to be profound thought, till Pericles flung

the door open. Violetta and Irma had departed. “Behold! I have it; ze

address of your rogue Barto Rizzo,” said Pericles, in the manner of one

whose triumph is absolutely due to his own shrewdness. “Are two women a

match for me? Now, my friend, you shall see. Barto Rizzo is too clever

for zis government, which cannot catch him. I catch him, and I teach him

he may touch politics--it is not for him to touch Art. What! to hound

men to interrupt her while she sings in public places? What next! But

I knew my Countess d'Isorella could help me, and so I sent for her to

confront Irma, and dare to say she knew not Barto's dwelling--and why? I

will tell you a secret. A long-flattered woman, my friend, she has had,

you will think, enough of it; no! she is like avarice. If it is worship

of swine, she cannot refuse it. Barto Rizzo worships her; so it is a

deduction--she knows his abode--I act upon that, and I arrive at my end.

I now send him to ze devil.”

Barto Rizzo, after having evaded the polizia of the city during a

three months' steady chase, was effectually captured on the doorstep of

Vittoria's house in the Corso Francesco, by gendarmes whom Pericles had

set on his track. A day later Vittoria was stabbed at about the same

hour, on the same spot. A woman dealt the blow. Vittoria was returning

from an afternoon drive with Laura Piaveni and the children. She saw a

woman seated on the steps as beggarwomen sit, face in lap. Anxious to

shield her from the lacquey, she sent the two little ones up to her with

small bits of money. But, as the woman would not lift her head, she and

Laura prepared to pass her, Laura coming last. The blow, like all such

unexpected incidents, had the effect of lightning on those present;

the woman might have escaped, but after she had struck she sat down

impassive as a cat by the hearth, with a round-eyed stare.

The news that Vittoria had been assassinated traversed the city. Carlo

was in Turin, Merthyr in Rome. Pericles was one of the first who reached

the house; he was coming out when Wilfrid and the Duchess of Graatli

drove up; and he accused the Countess d'Isorella flatly of having

instigated the murder. He was frantic. They supposed that she must have

succumbed to the wound. The duchess sent for Laura. There was a press

of carriages and soft-humming people in the street; many women and

men sobbing. Wilfrid had to wait an hour for the duchess, who brought

comfort when she came. Her first words were reassuring. “Ah!” she said,

“did I not do well to make you drive here with me instead of with Lena?

Those eyes of yours would be unpardonable to her. Yes, indeed; though a

corpse were lying in this house; but Countess Alessandra is safe. I have

seen her. I have held her hand.”

Wilfrid kissed the duchess's hand passionately.

What she had said of Lena was true: Lena could only be generous upon the

after-thought; and when the duchess drove Wilfrid back to her, he had

to submit to hear scorn: and indignation against all Italians, who

were denounced as cut-throats, and worse and worse and worse, males

and females alike. This way grounded on her sympathy for Vittoria. But

Wilfrid now felt toward the Italians through his remembrance of that

devoted soul's love of them, and with one direct look he bade his

betrothed good-bye, and they parted.

It was in the early days of March that Merthyr, then among the

Republicans of Rome, heard from Laura Piaveni. Two letters reached him,

one telling of the attempted assassination, and a second explaining

circumstances connected with it. The first summoned him to Milan; the

other left it to his option to make the journey. He started, carrying

kind messages from the Chief to Vittoria, and from Luciano Ramara the

offer of a renewal of old friendship to Count Ammiani. His political

object was to persuade the Lombard youth to turn their whole strength

upon Rome. The desire of his heart was again to see her, who had been so

nearly lost to all eyes for ever.

Laura's first letter stated brief facts. “She was stabbed this

afternoon, at half-past two, on the steps of her house, by a woman

called the wife of Barto Rizzo. She caught her hands up under her throat

when she saw the dagger. Her right arm was penetrated just above the

wrist, and half-an-inch in the left breast, close to the centre bone.

She behaved firmly. The assassin only struck once. No visible danger;

but you should come, if you have no serious work.”

“Happily,” ran the subsequent letter, of two days' later date, “the

assassin was a woman, and one effort exhausts a woman; she struck

only once, and became idiotic. Sandra has no fever. She had her wits

ready--where were mine?--when she received the wound. While I had her in

my arms, she gave orders that the woman should be driven out of the city

in her carriage. The Greek, her mad musical adorer, accuses Countess

d'Isorella. Carlo has seen this person--returns convinced of her

innocence. That is not an accepted proof; but we have one. It seems that

Rizzo (Sandra was secret about it and about one or two other things)

sent to her commanding her to appoint an hour detestable style! I can

see it now; I fear these conspiracies no longer:--she did appoint an

hour; and was awaiting him when the gendarmes sprang on the man at her

door.

“He had evaded them several weeks, so we are to fancy that his wife

charged Countess Alessandra with the betrayal. This appears a reasonable

and simple way of accounting for the deed. So I only partly give credit

to it. But it may be true.

“The wound has not produced a shock to her system--very, very

fortunately. On the whole, a better thing could not have happened.

Should I be more explicit? Yes, to you; for you are not of those who see

too much in what is barely said. The wound, then, my dear good friend,

has healed another wound, of which I knew nothing. Bergamasc and

Brescian friends of her husband's, have imagined that she interrupted or

diverted his studies. He also discovered that she had an opinion of her

own, and sometimes he consulted it; but alas! they are lovers, and he

knew not when love listened, or she when love spoke; and there was grave

business to be done meanwhile. Can you kindly allow that the case was

open to a little confusion? I know that you will. He had to hear many

violent reproaches from his fellow-students. These have ceased. I send

this letter on the chance of the first being lost on the road; and it

will supplement the first pleasantly to you in any event. She lies here

in the room where I write, propped on high pillows, the right arm bound

up, and says: 'Tell Merthyr I prayed to be in Rome with my husband,

and him, and the Chief. Tell him I love my friend. Tell him I think he

deserves to be in Rome. Tell him--' Enter Countess Ammiani to reprove

her for endangering the hopes of the house by fatiguing herself. Sandra

sends a blush at me, and I smile, and the countess kisses her. I send

you a literal transcript of one short scene, so that you may feel at

home with us.

“There is a place called Venice, and there is a place called Rome, and

both places are pretty places and famous places; and there is a thing

called the fashion; and these pretty places and famous places set the

fashion: and there is a place called Milan, and a place called Bergamo,

and a place called Brescia, and they all want to follow the fashion, for

they are giddy-pated baggages. What is the fashion, mama? The fashion,

my dear, is &c. &c. &c.:--Extract of lecture to my little daughter,

Amalia, who says she forgets you; but Giacomo sends his manly love. Oh,

good God! should I have blood in my lips when I kissed him, if I knew

that he was old enough to go out with a sword in his hand a week hence?

I seem every day to be growing more and more all mother. This month in

front of us is full of thunder. Addio!”

When Merthyr stood in sight of Milan an army was issuing from the gates.

CHAPTER XLI

THE INTERVIEW

Merthyr saw Laura first. He thought that Vittoria must be lying on her

couch: but Laura simply figured her arm in a sling, and signified, more

than said, that Vittoria was well and taking the air. She then begged

hungrily for news of Rome, and again of Rome, and sat with her hands

clasped in her lap to listen. She mentioned Venice in a short breath of

praise, as if her spirit could not repose there. Rome, its hospitals,

its municipal arrangements, the names of the triumvirs, the prospects of

the city, the edicts, the aspects of the streets, the popularity of

the Government, the number of volunteers ranked under the magical

Republic--of these things Merthyr talked, at her continual instigation,

till, stopping abruptly, he asked her if she wished to divert him from

any painful subject. “No, no!” she cried, “it's only that I want to feel

an anchor. We are all adrift. Sandra is in perfect health. Our bodies,

dear Merthyr, are enjoying the perfection of comfort. Nothing is done

here except to keep us from boiling over.”

“Why does not Count Ammiani come to Rome?” said Merthyr.

“Why are we not all in Rome? Yes, why! why! We should make a carnival of

our own if we were.”

“She would have escaped that horrible knife,” Merthyr sighed.

“Yes, she would have escaped that horrible knife. But see the difference

between Milan and Rome, my friend! It was a blessed knife here. It has

given her husband back to her; it has destroyed the intrigues against

her. It seems to have been sent--I was kneeling in the cathedral this

morning, and had the very image crossing my eyes--from the saints of

heaven to cut the black knot. Perhaps it may be the means of sending us

to Rome.”

Laura paused, and, looking at him, said, “It is so utterly impossible

for us women to comprehend love without folly in a man; the trait by

which we recognize it! Merthyr, you dear Englishman, you shall know

everything. Do we not think a tisane a weak washy drink, when we are

strong? But we learn, when we lie with our chins up, and our ten toes

like stopped organ-pipes--as Sandra says--we learn then that it means

fresh health and activity, and is better than rivers of your fiery

wines. You love her, do you not?”

The question came with great simplicity.

“If I can give a proof of it, I am ready to answer,” said Merthyr, in

some surprise.

“Your whole life is the proof of it. The women of your country are

intolerable to me, Merthyr: but I do see the worth of the men. Sandra

has taught me. She can think of you, talk of you, kiss the vision of

you, and still be a faithful woman in our bondage of flesh; and to us

you know what a bondage it is: How can that be? I should have asked, if

I had not seen it. Dearest, she loves her husband, and she loves you.

She has two husbands, and she turns to the husband of her spirit when

that, or any, dagger strikes her bosom. Carlo has an unripe mind. They

have been married but a little more than four months; and he reveres

her and loves her.”.... Laura's voice dragged. “Multiply the months by

thousands, we shall not make those two lives one. It is the curse of

man's education in Italy? He can see that she has wits and courage. He

will not consent to make use of them. You know her: she is not one to

talk of these things. She, who has both heart and judgement--she is

merely a little boat tied to a big ship. Such is their marriage. She

cannot influence him. She is not allowed to advise him. And she is the

one who should lead the way. And--if she did, we should now be within

sight of the City.”

Laura took his hand. She found it moist, though his face was calm and

his chest heaved regularly. An impish form of the pity women feel for us

at times moved her to say, “Your skin is as bronzed as it was last

year. Sandra spoke of it. She compared it to a young vine-leaf. I wonder

whether girls have really an admonition of what is good for them while

they are going their ways like destined machines?”

“Almost all men are of flesh and blood,” said Merthyr softly.

“I spoke of girls.”

“I speak of men.”

“Blunt--witted that I am! Of course you did. But do not imagine that she

is not happy with her husband. They are united firmly.”

“The better for her, and him, and me,” said Merthyr.

Laura twisted an end of her scarf with fretful fingers. “Carlo Albert

has crossed the Ticino?”

“Is about to do so,” Merthyr rejoined.

“Will Rome hold on if he is defeated?”

“Rome has nothing to fear on that side.”

“But you do not speak hopefully of Rome.”

“I suppose I am thinking of other matters.”

“You confess it!”

The random conversation wearied him. His foot tapped the floor.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“Verily, for no other reason than that I have a wicked curiosity, and

that you come from Rome,” said Laura, now perfectly frank, and believing

that she had explained her enigmatical talk, if she had not furnished an

excuse for it. Merthyr came from the City which was now encircled by

an irradiating halo in her imagination, and a fit of spontaneous

inexplicable feminine tenderness being upon her at the moment of their

meeting, she found herself on a sudden prompted to touch and probe and

brood voluptuously over an unfortunate lover's feelings, supposing that

they existed. For the glory of Rome was on him, and she was at the same

time angry with Carlo Ammiani. It was the form of passion her dedicated

widowhood could still be subject to in its youth; the sole one. By this

chance Merthyr learnt what nothing else would have told him.

Her tale of the attempted assassination was related with palpable

indifference. She stated the facts. “The woman seemed to gasp while

she had her hand up; she struck with no force; and she has since been

inanimate, I hear. The doctor says that a spasm of the heart seized her

when she was about to strike. It has been shaken--I am not sure that he

does not say displaced, or unseated--by some one of her black tempers.

She shot Rinaldo Guidascarpi dead. Perhaps it was that. I am informed

that she worshipped the poor boy, and has been like a trapped she-wolf

since she did it. In some way she associated our darling with Rinaldo's

death, like the brute she is. The ostensible ground for her futile

bit of devilishness was that she fancied Sandra to have betrayed Barto

Rizzo, her husband, into the hands of the polizia. He wrote to the

Countess Alessandra--such a letter!--a curiosity!--he must see her and

cross-examine her to satisfy himself that she was a true patriot, &c.

You know the style: we neither of us like it. Sandra was waiting to

receive him when they pounced on him by the door. Next day the woman

struck at her. Decidedly a handsome woman. She is the exact contrast

to the Countess Violetta in face, in everything. Heart-disease will

certainly never affect that pretty spy! But, mark,” pursued

Laura, warming, “when Carlo arrived, tears, penitence, heaps of

self-accusations: he had been unkind to her even on Lake Orta, where

they passed their golden month; he had neglected her at Turin; he had

spoken angry words in Milan; in fact, he had misused his treasure, and

begged pardon;--'If you please, my poor bleeding angel, I am sorry. But

do not, I entreat, distract me with petitions of any sort, though I will

perform anything earthly to satisfy you. Be a good little boat in the

wake of the big ship. I will look over at you, and chirrup now and

then to you, my dearest, when I am not engaged in piloting

extraordinary.'--Very well; I do not mean to sneer at the unhappy boy,

Merthyr; I love him; he was my husband's brother in arms; the sweetest

lad ever seen. He is in the season of faults. He must command; he must

be a chief; he fancies he can intrigue poor thing! It will pass. And so

will the hour to be forward to Rome. But I call your attention to this:

when he heard of the dagger--I have it from Colonel Corte, who was with

him at the time in Turin--he cried out Violetta d'Isorella's name.

Why? After he had buried his head an hour on Sandra's pillow, he went

straight to Countess d'Isorella, and was absent till night. The woman is

hideous to me. No; don't conceive that I think her Sandra's rival. She

is too jealous. She has him in some web. If she has not ruined him, she

will. She was under my eyes the night she heard of his marriage: I saw

how she will look at seventy! Here is Carlo at the head of a plot she

has prepared for him; and he has Angelo Guidascarpi, and Ugo Corte,

Marco Sana, Giulio Bandinelli, and about fifty others. They have all

been kept away from Rome by that detestable -----, you object to hear

bad names cast on women, Merthyr. Hear Agostino! The poor old man comes

daily to this house to persuade Carlo to lead his band to Rome. It is

so clearly Rome--Rome, where all his comrades are; where the chief stand

must be made by the side of Italy's Chief. Worst sign of all, it has

been hinted semi-officially to Carlo that he may upon application

be permitted to re-issue his journal. Does not that show that the

Government wishes to blindfold him, and keep him here, and knows his

plans?”

Laura started up as the door opened, and Vittoria appeared leaning upon

Carlo's arm. Countess Ammiani, Countess d'Isorella, and Pericles were

behind them. Laura's children followed.

When Merthyr rose, Vittoria was smiling in Carlo's face at something

that had been spoken. She was pale, and her arm was in a sling, but

there was no appearance of her being unnerved. Merthyr waited for her

recognition of him. She turned her eyes from Carlo slowly. The soft

dull smile in them died out as it were with a throb, and then her head

drooped on one shoulder, and she sank to the floor.

CHAPTER XLII

THE SHADOW ON CONSPIRACY

Merthyr left the house at Laura's whispered suggestion. He was agitated

beyond control, for Vittoria had fallen with her eyes fixed on him; and

at times the picture of his beloved, her husband, and Countess Ammiani,

and the children bending over her still body, swam before him like a

dark altar-piece floating in incense, so lost was he to the reality of

that scene. He did not hear Beppo, his old servant, at his heels. After

a while he walked calmly, and Beppo came up beside him. Merthyr shook

his hand.

“Ah, signor Mertyrio! ah, padrone!” said Beppo.

Merthyr directed his observation to a regiment of Austrians marching

down the Corso Venezia to the Ticinese gate.

“Yes, they are ready enough for us,” Beppo remarked. “Perhaps Carlo

Alberto will beat them this time. If he does, viva to him! If they beat

him, down goes another Venetian pyramid. The Countess Alessandra--”

Beppo's speech failed.

“What of your mistress?” said Merthyr.

“When she dies, my dear master, there's no one for me but the Madonna to

serve.”

“Why should she die, silly fellow?”

“Because she never cries.”

Merthyr was on the point of saying, “Why should she cry?” His heart was

too full, and he shrank from inquisitive shadows of the thing known to

him.

“Sit down at this caffe with me,” he said. “It's fine weather for March.

The troops will camp comfortably. Those Hungarians never require tents.

Did you see much sacking of villages last year?”

“Padrone, the Imperial command is always to spare the villages.”

“That's humane.”

“Padrone, yes; if policy is humanity.”

“It's humanity not carried quite as far as we should wish it.”

Beppo shrugged and said: “It won't leave much upon the conscience if we

kill them.”

“Do you expect a rising?” said Merthyr.

“If the Ticino overflows, it will flood Milan,” was the answer.

“And your occupation now is to watch the height of the water?”

“My occupation, padrone? I am not on the watch-tower.” Beppo winked,

adding: “I have my occupation.” He threw off the effort or pretence to

be discreet. “Master of my soul! this is my occupation. I drink coffee,

but I do not smoke, because I have to kiss a pretty girl, who means to

object to the smell of the smoke. Via! I know her! At five she draws me

into the house.”

“Are you relating your amours to me, rascal?” Merthyr interposed.

“Padrone, at five precisely she draws me into the house. She is a German

girl. Pardon me if I make no war on women. Her name is Aennchen, which

one is able to say if one grimaces;--why not? It makes her laugh; and

German girls are amiable when one can make them laugh. 'Tis so that they

begin to melt. Behold the difference of races! I must kiss her to melt

her, and then have a quarrel. I could have it after the first, or the

fiftieth with an Italian girl; but my task will be excessively difficult

with a German girl, if I am compelled to allow myself to favour her with

one happy solicitation for a kiss, to commence with. We shall see. It

is, as my abstention from tobacco declares, an anticipated catastrophe.”

“Long-worded, long-winded, obscure, affirmatizing by negatives,

confessing by implication!--where's the beginning and end of you, and

what's your meaning?” said Merthyr, who talked to him as one may talk to

an Italian servant.

“The contessa, my mistress, has enemies. Padrone, I devote myself to her

service.”

“By making love to a lady's maid?”

“Padrone, a rat is not born to find his way up the grand staircase. She

has enemies. One of them was the sublime Barto Rizzo--admirable--though

I must hate him. He said to his wife: 'If a thing happens to me, stab to

the heart the Countess Alessandra Ammiani.'”

“Inform me how you know that?” said Merthyr.

Beppo pointed to his head, and Merthyr smiled. To imagine, invent, and

believe, were spontaneous with Beppo when has practical sagacity was not

on the stretch. He glanced at the caffe clock.

“Padrone, at eleven to-night shall I see you here? At eleven I shall

come like a charged cannon. I have business. I have seen my mistress's

blood! I will tell you: this German girl lets me know that some one

detests my mistress. Who? I am off to discover. But who is the damned

creature? I must coo and kiss, while my toes are dancing on hot plates,

to find her out. Who is she? If she were half Milan...”

His hands waved in outline the remainder of the speech, and he rose, but

sat again. He had caught sight of the spy, Luigi Saracco, addressing the

signor Antonio-Pericles in his carriage. Pericles drove on. The horses

presently turned, and he saluted Merthyr.

“She has but one friend in Milan: it is myself,” was his introductory

remark. “My poor child! my dear Powys, she is the best--'I cannot sing

to you to-day, dear Pericles'--she said that after she had opened her

eyes; after the first mist, you know. She is the best child upon earth.

I could wish she were a devil, my Powys. Such a voice should be in an

iron body. But she has immense health. The doctor, who is also mine,

feels her pulse. He assures me it goes as Time himself, and Time, my

friend, you know, has the intention of going a great way. She is good:

she is too good. She makes a baby of Pericles, to whom what is woman?

Have I not the sex in my pocket? Her husband, he is a fool, ser.”

Pericles broke thundering into a sentence of English, fell in love with

it, and resumed in the same tongue: “I--it is I zat am her guard, her

safety. Her husband--oh! she must marry a young man, little donkey zat

she is! We accept it as a destiny, my Powys. And he plays false to her.

Good; I do not object. But, imagine in your own mind, my Powys--instead

of passion, of rage, of tempest, she is frozen wiz a repose. Do you,

hein? sink it will come out,”--Pericles eyed Merthyr with a subtle

smile askew,--“I have sot so;--it will come out when she is one day in

a terrible scene ... Mon Dieu! it was a terrible scene for me when I

looked on ze clout zat washed ze blood of ze terrible assassination. So

goes out a voice, possibly! Divine, you say? We are a machine. Now,

you behold, she has faints. It may happen at my concert where she sings

to-morrow night. You saw me in my carriage speaking to a man. He is my

spy--my dog wiz a nose. I have set him upon a woman. If zat woman has a

plot for to-morrow night to spoil my concert, she shall not know

where she shall wake to-morrow morning after. Ha! here is military

music--twenty sossand doors jam on horrid hinge; and right, left,

right, left, to it, confound! like dolls all wiz one face. Look at

your soldiers, Powys. Put zem on a stage, and you see all background

people--a bawling chorus. It shows to you how superior it is--a stage

to life! Hark to such music! I cannot stand it; I am driven away; I am

violent; I rage.”

Pericles howled the name of his place of residence, with an offer of

lodgings in it, and was carried off writhing his body as he passed a

fine military marching band.

The figure of old Agostino Balderini stood in front of Merthyr.

They exchanged greetings. At the mention of Rome, Agostino frowned

impatiently. He spoke of Vittoria in two or three short exclamations,

and was about to speak of Carlo, but checked his tongue. “Judge for

yourself. Come, and see, and approve, if you can. Will you come? There's

a meeting; there's to be a resolution. Question--Shall we second the

King of Sardinia, Piedmont, and Savoy? If so, let us set this pumpkin,

called Milan, on its legs. I shall be an attentive listener like you, my

friend. I speak no more.”

Merthyr went with him to the house of a carpenter, where in one of the

uppermost chambers communicating with the roof, Ugo Corte, Marco Sana,

Giulio Bandinelli, and others, sat waiting for the arrival of Carlo

Ammiani; when he came Carlo had to bear with the looks of mastiffs for

being late. He shook Merthyr's hand hurriedly, and as soon as the door

was fastened, began to speak. His first sentence brought a grunt of

derision from Ugo Corte. It declared that there was no hope of a rising

in Milan. Carlo swung round upon the Bergamasc. “Observe our leader,”

Agostino whispered to Merthyr; “it would be kindness to give him a

duel.” More than one tumult of outcries had to be stilled before Merthyr

gathered any notion of the designs of the persons present. Bergamasc

sneered at Brescian, and both united in contempt of the Milanese, who,

having a burden on their minds, appealed at once to their individual

willingness to use the sword in vindication of Milan against its

traducers. By a great effort, Carlo got some self-mastery. He admitted,

colouring horribly, that Brescia and Bergamo were ready, and Milan was

not; therefore those noble cities (he read excerpts from letters showing

their readiness) were to take the lead, and thither on the morrow-night

he would go, let the tidings from the king's army be what they might.

Merthyr quitted the place rather impressed by his eloquence, but

unfavourably by his feverish look. Countess d'Isorella had been referred

to as one who served the cause ably and faithfully. In alluding to

her, Carlo bit his lip; he did not proceed until surrounding murmurs of

satisfaction encouraged him to continue a sort of formal eulogy of the

lady, which proved to be a defence against foregone charges, for Corte

retracted an accusation, and said that he had no fault to find with the

countess. A proposal to join the enterprise was put to Merthyr, but his

engagement with the Chief in Rome saved him from hearing much of the

marvellous facilities of the plot. “I should have wished to see you

to-night,” Carlo said as they were parting. Merthyr named his hotel.

Carlo nodded. “My wife is still slightly feeble,” he said.

“I regret it,” Merthyr rejoined.

“She is not ill.”

“No, it cannot be want of courage,” Merthyr spoke at random.

“Yes, that's true,” said Carlo, as vacantly. “You will see her while I

am travelling.”

“I hope to find the Countess Alessandra well enough to receive me.”

“Always; always,” said Carlo, wishing apparently to say more. Merthyr

waited an instant, but Carlo broke into a conventional smile of adieu.

“While he is travelling,” Merthyr repeated to Agostino, who had stood by

during the brief dialogue, and led the way to the Corso.

“He did not say how far!” was the old man's ejaculation.

“But, good heaven! if you think he's on an unfortunate errand, why don't

you stop him, advise him?” Merthyr broke out.

“Advise him! stop him! my friend. I would advise him, if I had the

patience of angels; stop him, if I had the power of Lucifer. Did you not

see that he shunned speaking to me? I have been such a perpetual dish of

vinegar under his nose for the last month, that the poor fellow sniffs

when I draw near. He must go his way. He leads a torrent that must sweep

him on. Corte, Sana, and the rest would be in Rome now, but for him. So

should I. Your Agostino, however, is not of Bergamo, or of Brescia; he

is not a madman; simply a poor rheumatic Piedmontese, who discerns the

point where a united Italy may fix its standard. I would start for Rome

to-morrow, if I could leave her--my soul's child!” Agostino raised his

hand: “I do love the woman, Countess Alessandra Ammiani. I say, she is a

peerless woman. Is she not?”

“There is none like her,” said Merthyr.

“A peerless woman, recognized and sacrificed! I cannot leave her. If the

Government here would lay hands on Carlo and do their worst at once, I

would be off. They are too wary. I believe that they are luring him to

his ruin. I can give no proofs, but I judge by the best evidence. What

avails my telling him? I lose my temper the moment I begin to speak. A

curst witch beguiles the handsome idiot--poor darling lad that he is!

She has him--can I tell you how? She has got him--got him fast!--The

nature of the chains are doubtless innocent, if those which a woman

throws round us be ever distinguishable. He loves his wife--he is not a

monster.”

“He appears desperately feverish,” said Merthyr.

“Did you not notice it? Yes, like a man pushed by his destiny out of the

path. He is ashamed to hesitate; he cannot turn back. Ahead of him he

sees a gulf. That army of Carlo Alberto may do something under its Pole.

Prophecy is too easy. I say no more. We may have Lombardy open; and if

so, my poor boy's vanity will be crowned: he will only have the king and

his army against him then.”

Discoursing in this wise, they reached the caffe where Beppo had

appointed to meet his old master, and sat amid here and there a

whitecoat, and many nods and whispers over such news as the privileged

journals and the official gazette afforded.

Beppo's destination was to the Duchess of Graatli's palace. Nearing it,

he perceived Luigi endeavouring to gain a passage beside the burly form

of Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz, who presently seized him and hurled him

into the road. As Beppo was sidling up the courtway, Jacob sprang back;

Luigi made a rush; Jacob caught them both, but they wriggled out of his

clutch, and Luigi, being the fearfuller, ran the farthest. While he was

out of hearing, Beppo told Jacob to keep watch upon Luigi, as the bearer

of an amorous letter from a signor of quality to Aennchen, the which he

himself desired to obtain sight of; “for the wench has caused me

three sleepless nights,” he confessed frankly. Jacob affected not to

understand. Luigi and Beppo now leaned against the wall on either side

of him and baited him till he shook with rage.

“He is the lord of the duchess, his mistress--what a lucky fellow!”

said Luigi. “When he's dog at the gates no one can approach her. When he

isn't, you can fancy what!”--“He's only a mechanical contrivance; he's

not a man,” said Beppo. “He's the principal flea-catcher of the palace,”

said Luigi--“here he is all day, and at night the devil knows where he

hunts.”--Luigi hopped in a half-circle round the exacerbated Jacob, and

finally provoked an assault that gave an opening to Beppo. They all

ran in, Luigi last. Jacob chased Beppo up the stairs, lost him, and

remembered what he had said of the letter borne by Luigi, for whom

he determined to lie in waiting. “Better two in there than one,” he

thought. The two courted his Aennchen openly; but Luigi, as the bearer

of an amorous letter from the signor of quality, who could be no other

than signor Antonio-Pericles, was the one to be intercepted. Like other

jealous lovers, Jacob wanted to read Aennchen's answer, to be cured of

his fatal passion for the maiden, and on this he set the entire force of

his mind.

Running up by different staircases, Beppo and Luigi came upon Aennchen

nearly at the same time. She turned a cold face on Beppo, and requested

Luigi to follow her. Astonished to see him in such favour, Beppo was

ready to provoke the quarrel before the kiss when she returned; but

she said that she had obeyed her mistress's orders, and was obeying the

duchess in refusing to speak of them, or of anything relating to them.

She had promised him an interview in that little room leading into the

duchess's boudoir. He pressed her to conduct him. “Ah; then it's not for

me you come,” she said. Beppo had calculated that the kiss would open

his way to the room, and the quarrel disembarrass him of his pretty

companion when there. “You have come to listen to conversation again,”

said Aennchen. “Ach! the fool a woman is to think that you Italians have

any idea except self-interest when you, when you... talk nonsense to

us. Go away, if you please. Good-evening.” She dropped a curtsey with a

surly coquetry, charming of its kind. Beppo protested that the room

was dear to him because there first he had known for one blissful

half-second the sweetness of her mouth.

“Who told you that persons who don't like your mistress are going to

talk in there?” said Aennchen.

“You,” said Beppo.

Aennchen drew up in triumph: “And now will you pretend that you didn't

come up here to go in there to listen to what they say?”

Beppo clapped hands at her cleverness in trapping him. “Hush,” said all

her limbs and features, belying the previous formal “good-evening.”

He refused to be silent, thinking it a way of getting to the little

antechamber. “Then, I tell you, downstairs you go,” said Aennchen

stiffly.

“Is it decided?” Beppo asked. “Then, good-evening. You detestable

German girls can't love. One step--a smile: another step--a kiss. You

tit-for-tat minx! Have you no notion of the sacredness of the sentiments

which inspires me to petition that the place for our interview should be

there where I tasted ecstatic joy for the space of a flash of lightning?

I will go; but it is there that I will go, and I will await you there,

signorina Aennchen. Yes, laugh at me! laugh at me!”

“No; really, I don't laugh at you, signor Beppo,” said Aennchen,

protesting in denial of what she was doing. “This way.”

“No, it's that way,” said Beppo.

“It's through here.” She opened a door. “The duchess has a reception

to-night, and you can't go round. Ach! you would not betray me?”

“Not if it were the duchess herself,” said Beppo; “he would refuse to

satisfy man's natural vanity, in such a case.”

Eager to advance to the little antechamber, he allowed Aennchen to wait

behind him. He heard the door shut and a lock turn, and he was in the

dark, and alone, left to take counsel of his fingers' ends.

“She was born to it,” Beppo remarked, to extenuate his outwitted

cunning, when he found each door of the room fast against him.

On the following night Vittoria was to sing at a concert in the Duchess

of Graatli's great saloon, and the duchess had humoured Pericles by

consenting to his preposterous request that his spy should have an

opportunity of hearing Countess d'Isorella and Irma di Karski in private

conversation together, to discover whether there was any plot of any

sort to vex the evening's entertainment; as the jealous spite of those

two women, Pericles said, was equal to any devilry on earth. It happened

that Countess d'Isorella did not come. Luigi, in despair,--was the

hearer of a quick question and answer dialogue, in the obscure German

tongue, between Anna von Lenkenstein and Irma di Karski; but a happy

peep between the hanging curtains gave him sight of a letter passing

from Anna's hands to Irma's. Anna quitted her. Irma, was looking at the

superscription of the letter, an the act of passing in her steps, when

Luigi tore the curtains apart, and sprang on her arm like a cat. Before

her shrieks could bring succour, Luigi was bounding across the court

with the letter in his possession. A dreadful hug awaited him; his

pockets were ransacked, and he was pitched aching into the street. Jacob

Baumwalder Feckelwitz went straightway under a gas-lamp, where he read

the address of the letter to Countess d'Isorella. He doubted; he had

a half-desire to tear the letter open. But a rumour of the attack upon

Irma had spread among the domestics and Jacob prudently went up to his

mistress. The duchess was sitting with Laura. She received the letter,

eyed: it all over, and held it to a candle.

Laura's head was bent in dark meditation. The sudden increase of light

aroused her, and she asked, “What is that?”

“A letter from Countess Anna to Countess d'Isorella,” said the duchess.

“Burnt!” Laura screamed.

“It's only fair,” the duchess remarked.

“From her to that woman! It may be priceless. Stop! Let me see what

remains. Amalia! are you mad? Oh! you false friend. I would have

sacrificed my right hand to see it.”

“Try and love me still,” said the duchess, letting her take one unburnt

corner, and crumble the black tissuey fragments to smut in her hands.

There was no writing; the unburnt corner of the letter was a blank.

Laura fooled the wretched ashes between her palms. “Good-night,” she

said. “Your face will be of this colour to me, my dear, for long.”

“I cannot behave disgracefully, even to keep your love, my beloved,”

said the duchess.

“You cannot betray a German, you mean,” Laura retorted. “You could let a

spy into the house.”

“That was a childish matter--merely to satisfy a whim.”

“I say you could let a spy into the house. Who is to know where the

scruples of you women begin? I would have given my jewels, my head, my

husband's sword, for a sight of that letter. I swear that it concerns

us. Yes, us. You are a false friend. Fish-blooded creature! may it be a

year before I look on you again. Hide among your miserable set!”

“Judge me when you are cooler, dearest,” said the duchess, seeking to

detain the impetuous sister of her affection by the sweeping skirts; but

Laura spurned her touch, and went from her.

Irma drove to Countess d'Isorella's. Violetta was abed, and lay fair

and placid as a Titian Venus, while Irma sputtered out her tale, with

intermittent sobs. She rose upon her elbow, and planting it in her

pillow, took half-a-dozen puffs of a cigarette, and then requested Irma

to ring for her maid. “Do nothing till you see me again,” she said;

“and take my advice: always get to bed before midnight, or you'll have

unmanageable wrinkles in a couple of years. If you had been in bed at a

prudent hour to-night, this scandal would not have occurred.”

“How can I be in bed? How could I help it?” moaned Irma, replying to the

abstract rule, and the perplexing illustration of its force.

Violetta dismissed her. “After all, my wish is to save my poor

Amaranto,” she mused. “I am only doing now what I should have been doing

in the daylight; and if I can't stop him, the Government must; and they

will. Whatever the letter contained, I can anticipate it. He knows my

profession and my necessities. I must have money. Why not from the rich

German woman whom he jilted?”

She attributed Anna's apparent passion of revenge to a secret passion of

unrequited love. What else was implied by her willingness to part with

land and money for the key to his machinations?

Violetta would have understood a revenge directed against Angelo

Guidascarpi, as the slayer of Anna's brother. But of him Anna had only

inquired once, and carelessly, whether he was in Milan. Anna's mystical

semi-patriotism--prompted by her hatred of Vittoria, hatred of Carlo as

Angelo's cousin and protector, hatred of the Italy which held the three,

who never took the name Tedesco on their tongues without loathing--was

perfectly hidden from this shrewd head.

Some extra patrols were in the streets. As she stepped into the

carriage, a man rushed up, speaking hoarsely and inarticulately, and

jumped in beside her. She had discerned Barto Rizzo in time to give

directions to her footman, before she was addressed by a body of

gendarmes in pursuit, whom she mystified by entreating them to enter

her house and search it through, if they supposed that any evil-doer

had taken advantage of the open door. They informed her that a man had

escaped from the civil prison. “Poor creature!” said the countess, with

womanly pity; “but you must see that he is not in my house. How could

three of you let one escape?” She drove off laughing at their vehement

assertion that he would not have escaped from them. Barto Rizzo made her

conduct him to Countess Ammiani's gates.

Violetta was frightened by his eyes when she tried to persuade him in

her best coaxing manner to avoid Count Ammiani. In fact she apprehended

that he would be very much in her way. She had no time for chagrin at

her loss of power over him, though she was sensible of vexation. Barto

folded his arms and sat with his head in his chest, silent, till they

reached the' gates, when he said in French, “Madame, I am a nameless

person in your train. Gabble!” he added, when the countess advised him

not to enter; nor would he allow her to precede him by more than one

step. Violetta sent up her name. The man had shaken her nerves. “At

least, remember that your appearance should be decent,” she said,

catching sight of blood on his hands, and torn garments. “I expect,

madame,” he replied, “I shall not have time to wash before I am

laid out. My time is short. I want tobacco. The washing can be done

by-and-by, but not the smoking.”

They were ushered up to the reception-room, where Countess Ammiani,

Vittoria, and Carlo sat, awaiting the visitor whose unexpected name,

cast in their midst at so troubled a season, had clothed her with some

of the midnight's terrors.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN

Barto Rizzo had silence about him without having to ask for it, when he

followed Violetta into Countess Ammiani's saloon of reception. Carlo was

leaning over his mother's chair, holding Vittoria's wrist across it,

and so enclosing her, while both young faces were raised to the bowed

forehead of the countess. They stood up. Violetta broke through the

formal superlatives of an Italian greeting. “Speak to me alone,” she

murmured for Carlo's ear and glancing at Barto: “Here is a madman; a

mild one, I trust.” She contrived to show that she was not responsible

for his intrusion. Countess Ammiani gathered Vittoria in her arms; Carlo

stepped a pace before them. Terror was on the venerable lady's face,

wrath on her son's. As he fronted Barto, he motioned a finger to the

curtain hangings, and Violetta, quick at reading signs, found his bare

sword there. “But you will not want it,” she remarked, handing the hilt

to him, and softly eyeing the impression of her warm touch on the steel

as it passed.

“Carlo, thou son of Paolo! Countess Marcellina, wife of a true patriot!

stand aside, both of you. It is between the Countess Alessandra and

myself,” so the man commenced, with his usual pomp of interjection.

“Swords and big eyes,--are they things to stop me?” Barto laughed

scornfully. He had spoken in the full roll of his voice, and the sword

was hard back for the thrust.

Vittoria disengaged herself from the countess. “Speak to me,” she said,

dismayed by the look of what seemed an exaltation of madness in Barto's

visage, but firm as far as the trembling of her limbs would let her be.

He dropped to her feet and kissed them.

“Emilia Alessandra Belloni! Vittoria! Countess Alessandra Ammiani! pity

me. Hear this:--I hated you as the devil is hated. Yesterday I woke

up in prison to hear that I must adore you. God of all the pits of

punishment! was there ever one like this? I had to change heads.”

It was the language of a distorted mind, and lamentable to hear when a

sob shattered his voice.

“Am I mad?” he asked piteously, clasping his temples.

“You are as we are, if you weep,” said Vittoria, to sooth him.

“Then I have been mad!” he cried, starting. “I knew you a wicked

virgin--signora contessa, confess to me, marriage has changed you. Has

it not changed you? In the name of the Father of the Saints, help me out

of it:--my brain reels backwards. You were false, but marriage--It acts

in this way with you women; yes, that we know--you were married, and you

said, 'Now let us be faithful.' Did you not say that? I am forgiving,

though none think it. You have only to confess. If you will not,--oh!”

He smote his face, groaning.

Carlo spoke a stern word in an undertone; counselling him to be gone.

“If you will not--what was she to do?” Barto cut the question to

interrogate his strayed wits. “Look at me, Countess Alessandra. I was in

the prison. I heard that my Rosellina had a tight heart. She cried

for her master, poor heathen, and I sprang out of the walls to her.

There--there--she lay like a breathing board; a woman with a body like a

coffin half alive; not an eye to show; nothing but a body and a whisper.

She perished righteously, for she disobeyed. She acted without my

orders: she dared to think! She will be damned, for she would have

vengeance before she went. She glorified you over me--over Barto Rizzo.

Oh! she shocked my soul. But she is dead, and I am her slave. Every word

was of you. Take another head, Barto Rizzo your old one was mad: she

said that to my soul. She died blessing you above me. I saw the last bit

of life go up from her mouth blessing you. It's heard by this time in

heaven, and it's written. Then I have had two years of madness. If she

is right, I was wrong; I was a devil of hell. I know there's an eye

given to dying creatures, and she looked with it, and she said, the soul

of Rinaldo Guidascarpi, her angel, was glorifying you; and she thanked

the sticking of her heart, when she tried to stab you, poor fool!”

Carlo interrupted: “Now go; you have said enough.”

“No, let him speak,” said Vittoria. She supposed that Barto was going to

say that he had not given the order for her assassination. “You do not

wish me dead, signore?”

“Nothing that is not standing in my way, signora contessa,” said Barto;

and his features blazed with a smile of happy self-justification. “I

have killed a sentinel this night: Providence placed him there. I wish

for no death, but I punish, and--ah! the cursed sight of the woman who

calls me mad for two years. She thrusts a bar of iron in an engine at

work, and says, Work on! work on! Were you not a traitress? Countess

Alessandra, were you not once a traitress? Oh! confess it; save my head.

Reflect, dear lady! it's cruel to make a man of a saintly sincerity

look back--I count the months--seventeen months! to look back seventeen

months, and see that his tongue was a clapper,--his will, his eyes,

his ears, all about him, everything, stirred like a pot on the fire. I

traced you. I saw your treachery. I said--I, I am her Day of Judgement.

She shall look on me and perish, struck down by her own treachery.

Were my senses false to me? I had lived in virtuous fidelity to

my principles. None can accuse me. Why were my senses false, if my

principles were true? I said you were a traitress. I saw it from the

first. I had the divine contempt for women. My distrust of a woman was

the eye of this brain, and I said--Follow her, dog her, find her out! I

proved her false; but her devilish cunning deceived every other man

in the world. Oh! let me bellow, for it's me she proves the mass of

corruption! Tomorrow I die, and if I am mad now, what sort of a curse is

that?

“Now to-morrow is an hour--a laugh! But if I've not been shot from a

true bow--if I've been a sham for two years--if my name, and nature,

bones, brains, were all false things hunting a shadow, Countess

Alessandra, see the misery of Barto Rizzo! Look at those two years, and

say that I had my head. Answer me, as you love your husband: are you

heart and soul with him in the fresh fight for Lombardy?” He said

this with a look penetrating and malignant, and then by a sudden flash

pitifully entreating.