CHAPTER XXVIII

THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO

Vittoria knew better than Laura that the task was easy; she had but to

override her aversion to the show of trifling with a dead passion; and

when she thought of Angelo lying helpless in the swarm of enemies, and

that Wilfrid could consent to use his tragic advantage to force her to

silly love-play, his selfishness wrought its reflection, so that she

became sufficiently unjust to forget her marvellous personal influence

over him. Even her tenacious sentiment concerning his white uniform was

clouded. She very soon ceased to be shamefaced in her own fancy. At dawn

she stood at her window looking across the valley of Meran, and felt the

whole scene in a song of her heart, with the faintest recollection of her

having passed through a tempest overnight. The warm Southern glow of the

enfoliaged valley recalled her living Italy, and Italy her voice. She

grew wakefully glad: it was her nature, not her mind, that had twisted in

the convulsions of last night's horror of shame. The chirp of healthy

blood in full-flowing veins dispersed it; and as a tropical atmosphere is

cleared by the hurricane, she lost her depression and went down among her

enemies possessed by an inner delight, that was again of her nature, not

of her mind. She took her gladness for a happy sign that she had power to

rise buoyant above circumstances; and though aware that she was getting

to see things in harsh outlines, she was unconscious of her haggard

imagination.

The Lenkensteins had projected to escape the blandishments of Vienna by

residing during the winter in Venice, where Wilfrid and his sister were

to be the guests of the countess:--a pleasant prospect that was dashed

out by an official visit from Colonel Zofel of the Meran garrison,

through whom it was known that Lieutenant Pierson, while enjoying his

full liberty to investigate the charms of the neighbourhood, might not

extend his excursions beyond a pedestrian day's limit;--he was, in fact,

under surveillance. The colonel formally exacted his word of honour that

he would not attempt to pass the bounds, and explained to the duchess

that the injunction was favourable to the lieutenant, as implying that he

must be ready at any moment to receive the order to join his regiment.

Wilfrid bowed with a proper soldierly submission. Respecting the criminal

whom his men were pursuing, Colonel Zofel said that he was sparing no

efforts to come on his traces; he supposed, from what he had heard in the

Ultenthal, that Guidascarpi was on his back somewhere within a short

range of Meran. Vittoria strained her ears to the colonel's German; she

fancied his communication to be that he suspected Angelo's presence in

Meran.

The official part of his visit being terminated, the colonel addressed

some questions to the duchess concerning the night of the famous

Fifteenth at La Scala. He was an amateur, and spoke with enthusiasm of

the reports of the new prima donna. The duchess perceived that he was

asking for an introduction to the heroine of the night, and graciously

said that perhaps that very prima donna would make amends, to him for his

absence on the occasion. Vittoria checked a movement of revolt in her

frame. She cast an involuntary look at Wilfrid. "Now it begins," she

thought, and went to the piano: she had previously refused to sing.

Wilfrid had to bend his head over his betrothed and listen to her

whisperings. He did so, carelessly swaying his hand to the measure of the

aria, with an increasing bitter comparison of the two voices. Lena

persisted in talking; she was indignant at his abandonment of the journey

to Venice; she reproached him as feeble, inconsiderate, indifferent. Then

for an instant she would pause to hear the voice, and renew her assault.

"We ought to be thankful that she is not singing a song of death and

destruction to us! The archduchess is coming to Venice. If you are

presented to her and please her, and get the writs of naturalization

prepared, you will be one of us completely, and your fortune is made. If

you stay here--why should you stay? It is nothing but your uncle's

caprice. I am too angry to care for music. If you stay, you will earn my

contempt. I will not be buried another week in such a place. I am tired

of weeping. We all go to Venice: Captain Weisspriess follows us. We are

to have endless Balls, an opera, a Court there--with whom am I to dance,

pray, when I am out of mourning? Am I to sit and govern my feet under a

chair, and gaze like an imbecile nun? It is too preposterous. I am

betrothed to you; I wish, I wish to behave like a betrothed. The

archduchess herself will laugh to see me chained to a chair. I shall have

to reply a thousand times to 'Where is he?' What can I answer? 'Wouldn't

come,' will be the only true reply."

During this tirade, Vittoria was singing one of her old songs, well known

to Wilfrid, which brought the vision of a foaming weir, and moonlight

between the branches of a great cedar-tree, and the lost love of his

heart sitting by his side in the noising stillness. He was sure that she

could be singing it for no one but for him. The leap taken by his spirit

from this time to that, was shorter than from the past back to the

present.

"You do not applaud," said Lena, when the song had ceased.

He murmured: "I never do, in drawing-rooms."

"A cantatrice expects it everywhere; these creatures live on it."

"I'll tell her, if you like, what we thought of it, when I take her down

to my sister, presently."

"Are you not to take me down?"

"The etiquette is to hand her up to you."

"No, no!" Lena insisted, in abhorrence of etiquette; but Wilfrid said

pointedly that his sister's feelings must be spared. "Her husband is an

animal: he is a millionaire city-of-London merchant; conceive him! He has

drunk himself gouty on Port wine, and here he is for the grape-cure."

"Ah! in that England of yours, women marry for wealth," said Lena.

"Yes, in your Austria they have a better motive" he interpreted her

sentiment.

"Say, in our Austria."

"In our Austria, certainly."

"And with our holy religion?"

"It is not yet mine."

"It will be?" She put the question eagerly.

Wilfrid hesitated, and by his adept hesitation succeeded in throwing her

off the jealous scent.

"Say that it will be, my Wilfrid!"

"You must give me time"

"This subject always makes you cold."

"My own Lena!"

"Can I be, if we are doomed to be parted when we die?"

There is small space for compunction in a man's heart when he is in

Wilfrid's state, burning with the revival of what seemed to him a

superhuman attachment. He had no design to break his acknowledged bondage

to Countess Lena, and answered her tender speech almost as tenderly.

It never occurred to him, as he was walking down to Meran with Vittoria,

that she could suppose him to be bartering to help rescue the life of a

wretched man in return for soft confidential looks of entreaty; nor did

he reflect, that when cast on him, they might mean no more than the wish

to move him for a charitable purpose. The completeness of her fascination

was shown by his reading her entirely by his own emotions, so that a

lowly-uttered word, or a wavering unwilling glance, made him think that

she was subdued by the charm of the old days.

"Is it here?" she said, stopping under the first Italian name she saw in

the arcade of shops.

"How on earth have you guessed it?" he asked, astonished.

She told him to wait at the end of the arcade, and passed in. When she

joined him again, she was downcast. They went straight to Adela's hotel,

where the one thing which gave her animation was the hearing that Mr.

Sedley had met an English doctor there, and had placed himself in his

hands. Adela dressed splendidly for her presentation to the duchess.

Having done so, she noticed Vittoria's depressed countenance and

difficult breathing. She commanded her to see the doctor. Vittoria

consented, and made use of him. She could tell Laura confidently at night

that Wilfrid would not betray Angelo, though she had not spoken one

direct word to him on the subject.

Wilfrid was peculiarly adept in the idle game he played. One who is

intent upon an evil end is open to expose his plan. But he had none in

view; he lived for the luxurious sensation of being near the woman who

fascinated him, and who was now positively abashed when by his side.

Adela suggested to him faintly--she believed it was her spontaneous

idea--that he might be making his countess jealous. He assured her that

the fancy sprang from scenes which she remembered, and that she could

have no idea of the pride of a highborn Austrian girl, who was incapable

of conceiving jealousy of a person below her class. Adela replied that it

was not his manner so much as Emilia's which might arouse the suspicion;

but she immediately affected to appreciate the sentiments of a highborn

Austrian girl toward a cantatrice, whose gifts we regard simply as an

aristocratic entertainment. Wilfrid induced his sister to relate

Vittoria's early history to Countess Lena; and himself almost wondered,

when he heard it in bare words, at that haunting vision of the glory of

Vittoria at La Scala--where, as he remembered, he would have run against

destruction to cling to her lips. Adela was at first alarmed by the

concentrated wrathfulness which she discovered in the bosom of Countess

Anna, who, as their intimacy waxed, spoke of the intruding opera siren in

terms hardly proper even to married women; but it seemed right, as being

possibly aristocratic. Lena was much more tolerant. "I have just the same

enthusiasm for soldiers that my Wilfrid has for singers," she said; and

it afforded Adela exquisite pleasure to hear her tell how that she had

originally heard of the 'eccentric young Englishman,' General Pierson's

nephew, as a Lustspiel--a comedy; and of his feats on horseback, and his

duels, and his--"he was very wicked over here, you know;" Lena laughed.

She assumed the privileges of her four-and-twenty years and her rank. Her

marriage was to take place in the Spring. She announced it with the

simplicity of an independent woman of the world, adding, "That is, if my

Wilfrid will oblige me by not plunging into further disgrace with the

General."

"No; you will not marry a man who is under a cloud," Anna subjoined.

"Certainly not a soldier," said Lena. "What it was exactly that he did at

La Scala, I don't know, and don't care to know, but he was then ignorant

that she had touched the hand of that Guidascarpi. I decide by this--he

was valiant; he defied everybody: therefore I forgive him. He is not in

disgrace with me. I will reinstate him."

"You have your own way of being romantic," said Anna. "A soldier who

forgets his duty is in my opinion only a brave fool."

"It seems to me that a great many gallant officers are fond of fine

voices," Lena retorted.

"No doubt it is a fashion among them," said Anna.

Adela recoiled with astonishment when she began to see the light in which

the sisters regarded Vittoria; and she was loyal enough to hint and

protest on her friend's behalf. The sisters called her a very good soul.

"It may not be in England as over here," said Anna. "We have to submit to

these little social scourges."

Lena whispered to Adela, "An angry woman will think the worst. I have no

doubt of my Wilfrid. If I had!--"

Her eyes flashed. Fire was not wanting in her.

The difficulties which tasked the amiable duchess to preserve an outward

show of peace among the antagonistic elements she gathered together were

increased by the arrival at the castle of Count Lenkenstein, Bianca's

husband, and head of the family, from Bologna. He was a tall and courtly

man, who had one face for his friends and another for the reverse party;

which is to say, that his manners could be bad. Count Lenkenstein was

accompanied by Count Serabiglione, who brought Laura's children with

their Roman nurse, Assunta. Laura kissed her little ones, and sent them

out of her sight. Vittoria found her home in their play and prattle. She

needed a refuge, for Count Lenkenstein was singularly brutal in his

bearing toward her. He let her know that he had come to Meran to

superintend the hunt for the assassin, Angelo Guidascarpi. He attempted

to exact her promise in precise speech that she would be on the spot to

testify against Angelo when that foul villain should be caught. He

objected openly to Laura's children going about with her. Bitter talk on

every starting subject was exchanged across the duchess's table. She

herself was in disgrace on Laura's account, and had to practise an

overflowing sweetness, with no one to second her efforts. The two

noblemen spoke in accord on the bubble revolution. The strong hand--ay,

the strong hand! The strong hand disposes of vermin. Laura listened to

them, pallid with silent torture. "Since the rascals have taken to

assassination, we know that we have them at the dregs," said Count

Lenkenstein. "A cord round the throats of a few scores of them, and the

country will learn the virtue of docility."

Laura whispered to her sister: "Have you espoused a hangman?"

Such dropping of deadly shells in a quiet society went near to scattering

it violently; but the union was necessitous. Count Lenkenstein desired to

confront Vittoria with Angelo; Laura would not quit her side, and Amalia

would not expel her friend. Count Lenkenstein complained roughly of

Laura's conduct; nor did Laura escape her father's reproof. "Sir, you are

privileged to say what you will to me," she responded, with the humility

which exasperated him.

"Yes, you bend, you bend, that you may be stiff-necked when it suits

you," he snapped her short.

"Surely that is the text of the sermon you preach to our Italy!"

"A little more, as you are running on now, madame, and our Italy will be

froth on the lips. You see, she is ruined."

"Chi lo fa, lo sa," hummed Laura; "but I would avoid quoting you as that

authority."

"After your last miserable fiasco, my dear!"

"It was another of our school exercises. We had not been good boys and

girls. We had learnt our lesson imperfectly. We have received our

punishment, and we mean to do better next time."

"Behave seasonably, fittingly; be less of a wasp; school your tongue."

"Bianca is a pattern to me, I am aware," said Laura.

"She is a good wife."

"I am a poor widow."

"She is a good daughter."

"I am a wicked rebel."

"And you are scheming at something now," said the little nobleman,

sagacious so far; but he was too eager to read the verification of the

tentative remark in her face, and she perceived that it was a guess

founded on her show of spirit.

"Scheming to contain my temper, which is much tried," she said. "But I

suppose it supports me. I can always keep up against hostility."

"You provoke it; you provoke it."

"My instinct, then, divines my medicine."

"Exactly, my dear; your personal instinct. That instigates you all. And

none are so easily conciliated as these Austrians. Conciliate them, and

you have them." Count Serabiglione diverged into a repetition of his

theory of the policy and mission of superior intelligences, as regarded

his system for dealing with the Austrians.

Nurse Assunta's jealousy was worked upon to separate the children from

Vittoria. They ran down with her no more to meet the vast bowls of grapes

in the morning and feather their hats with vine leaves. Deprived of her

darlings, the loneliness of her days made her look to Wilfrid for

commiseration. Father Bernardus was too continually exhortative, and

fenced too much to "hit the eyeball of her conscience," as he phrased it,

to afford her repose. Wilfrid could tell himself that he had already done

much for her; for if what he had done were known, his career, social and

military, was ended. This idea being accompanied by a sense of security

delighted him; he was accustomed to inquire of Angelo's condition, and

praise the British doctor who was attending him gratuitously. "I wish I

could get him out of the way," he said, and frowned as in a mental

struggle. Vittoria heard him repeat his "I wish!" It heightened greatly

her conception of the sacrifice he would be making on her behalf and

charity's. She spoke with a reverential tenderness, such as it was hard

to suppose a woman capable of addressing to other than the man who moved

her soul. The words she uttered were pure thanks; it was the tone which

sent them winged and shaking seed. She had spoken partly to prompt his

activity, but her self-respect had been sustained by his avoidance of the

dreaded old themes, and that grateful feeling made her voice musically

rich.

"I dare not go to him, but the doctor tells me the fever has left him,

Wilfrid; his wounds are healing; but he is bandaged from head to foot.

The sword pierced his side twice, and his arms and hands are cut

horribly. He cannot yet walk. If he is discovered he is lost. Count

Lenkenstein has declared that he will stay at the castle till he has him

his prisoner. The soldiers are all round us. They know that Angelo is in

the ring. They have traced him all over from the Valtellina to this

Ultenthal, and only cannot guess where he is in the lion's jaw. I rise in

the morning, thinking, 'Is this to be the black day?' He is sure to be

caught."

"If I could hit on a plan," said Wilfrid, figuring as though he had a

diorama of impossible schemes revolving before his eyes.

"I could believe in the actual whispering of an angel if you did. It was

to guard me that Angelo put himself in peril."

"Then," said Wilfrid, "I am his debtor. I owe him as much as my life is

worth."

"Think, think," she urged; and promised affection, devotion, veneration,

vague things, that were too like his own sentiments to prompt him

pointedly. Yet he so pledged himself to her by word, and prepared his own

mind to conceive the act of service, that (as he did not reflect)

circumstance might at any moment plunge him into a gulf. Conduct of this

sort is a challenge sure to be answered.

One morning Vittoria was gladdened by a letter from Rocco Ricci, who had

fled to Turin. He told her that the king had promised to give her a warm

welcome in his capital, where her name was famous. She consulted with

Laura, and they resolved to go as soon as Angelo could stand on his feet.

Turin was cold--Italy, but it was Italy; and from Turin the Italian army

was to flow, like the Mincio from the Garda lake. "And there, too, is a

stage," Vittoria thought, in a suddenly revived thirst for the stage and

a field for work. She determined to run down to Meran and see Angelo.

Laura walked a little way with her, till Wilfrid, alert for these

occasions, joined them. On the commencement of the zig-zag below, there

were soldiers, the sight of whom was not confusing. Military messengers

frequently came up to the castle where Count Lenkenstein, assisted by

Count Serabiglione, examined their depositions, the Italian in the manner

of a winding lawyer, the German of a gruff judge. Half-way down the

zig-zag Vittoria cast a preconcerted signal back to Laura. The soldiers

had a pair of prisoners between their ranks; Vittoria recognized the men

who had carried Captain Weisspriess from the ground where the duel was

fought. A quick divination told her that they held Angelo's life on their

tongues. They must have found him in the mountain-pass while hurrying to

their homes, and it was they who had led him to Meran. On the Passeyr

bridge, she turned and said to Wilfrid, "Help me now. Send instantly the

doctor in a carriage to the place where he is lying."

Wilfrid was intent on her flushed beauty and the half-compressed quiver

of her lip.

She quitted him and hurried to Angelo. Her joy broke out in a cry of

thankfulness at sight of Angelo; he had risen from his bed; he could

stand, and he smiled.

"That Jacopo is just now the nearest link to me," he said, when she

related her having seen the two men guarded by soldiers; he felt

helpless, and spoke in resignation. She followed his eye about the room

till it rested on the stilet. This she handed to him. "If they think of

having me alive!" he said softly. The Italian and his wife who had given

him shelter and nursed him came in, and approved his going, though they

did not complain of what they might chance to have incurred. He offered

them his purse, and they took it. Minutes of grievous expectation went

by; Vittoria could endure them no longer; she ran out to the hotel, near

which, in the shade of a poplar, Wilfrid was smoking quietly. He informed

her that his sister and the doctor had driven out to meet Captain

Gambier; his brother-in-law was alone upstairs. Her look of amazement

touched him more shrewdly than scorn, and he said, "What on earth can I

do?"

"Order out a carriage. Send your brother-in-law in it. If you tell him

'for your health,' he will go."

"On my honour, I don't know where those three words would not send him,"

said Wilfrid; but he did not move, and was for protesting that he really

could not guess what was the matter, and the ground for all this urgency.

Vittoria compelled her angry lips to speak out her suspicions explicitly,

whereupon he glanced at the sun-glare in a meditation, occasionally

blinking his eyes. She thought, "Oh, heaven! can he be waiting for me to

coax him?" It was the truth, though it would have been strange to him to

have heard it. She grew sure that it was the truth; never had she

despised living creature so utterly as when she murmured, "My best

friend! my brother! my noble Wilfrid! my old beloved! help me now,

without loss of a minute."

It caused his breath to come and go unevenly.

"Repeat that--once, only once," he said.

She looked at him with the sorrowful earnestness which, as its meaning

was shut from him, was so sweet.

"You will repeat it by-and-by?--another time? Trust me to do my utmost.

Old beloved! What is the meaning of 'old beloved'? One word in

explanation. If it means anything, I would die for you! Emilia, do you

hear?--die for you! To me you are nothing old or by-gone, whatever I may

be to you. To me--yes, I will order the carriage you are the

Emilia--listen! listen! Ah! you have shut your ears against me. I am

bound in all seeming, but I--you drive me mad; you know your power. Speak

one word, that I may feel--that I may be convinced . . , or not a single

word; I will obey you without. I have said that you command my life."

In a block of carriages on the bridge, Vittoria perceived a lifted hand.

It was Laura's; Beppo was in attendance on her. Laura drove up and said:

"You guessed right; where is he?" The communications between them were

more indicated than spoken. Beppo had heard Jacopo confess to his having

conducted a wounded Italian gentleman into Meran. "That means that the

houses will be searched within an hour," said Laura; "my brother-in-law

Bear is radiant." She mimicked the Lenkenstein physiognomy spontaneously

in the run of her speech. "If Angelo can help himself ever so little, he

has a fair start." A look was cast on Wilfrid; Vittoria nodded--Wilfrid

was entrapped.

"Englishmen we can trust," said Laura, and requested him to step into her

carriage. He glanced round the open space. Beppo did the same, and beheld

the chasseur Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz crossing the bridge on foot, but

he said nothing. Wilfrid was on the step of the carriage, for what

positive object neither he nor the others knew, when his sister and the

doctor joined them. Captain Gambier was still missing.

"He would have done anything for us," Vittoria said in Wilfrid's hearing.

"Tell us what plan you have," the latter replied fretfully.

She whispered: "Persuade Adela to make her husband drive out. The doctor

will go too, and Beppo. They shall take Angelo. Our carriage will follow

empty, and bring Mr. Sedley back."

Wilfrid cast his eyes up in the air, at the monstrous impudence of the

project. "A storm is coming on," he suggested, to divert her reading of

his grimace; but she was speaking to the doctor, who readily answered her

aloud: "If you are certain of what you say." The remark incited Wilfrid

to be no subordinate in devotion; handing Adela from the carriage, while

the doctor ran up to Mr. Sedley, he drew her away. Laura and Vittoria

watched the motion of their eyes and lips.

"Will he tell her the purpose?" said Laura.

Vittoria smiled nervously: "He is fibbing."

Marking the energy expended by Wilfrid in this art, the wiser woman said:

"Be on your guard the next two minutes he gets you alone."

"You see his devotion."

"Does he see his compensation? But he must help us at any hazard."

Adela broke away from her brother twice, and each time he fixed her to

the spot more imperiously. At last she ran into the hotel; she was

crying. "A bad economy of tears," said Laura, commenting on the dumb

scene, to soothe her savage impatience. "In another twenty minutes we

shall have the city gates locked."

They heard a window thrown up; Mr. Sedley's head came out, and peered at

the sky. Wilfrid said to Vittoria: "I can do nothing beyond what I have

done, I fear."

She thought it was a petition for thanks, but Laura knew better; she

said: "I see Count Lenkenstein on his way to the barracks."

Wilfrid bowed: "I may be able to serve you in that quarter."

He retired: whereupon Laura inquired how her friend could reasonably

suppose that a man would ever endure being thanked in public.

"I shall never understand and never care to understand them," said

Vittoria.

"It is a knowledge that is forced on us, my dear. May heaven make the

minds of our enemies stupid for the next five hours!--Apropos of what I

was saying, women and men are in two hostile camps. We have a sort of

general armistice and everlasting strife of individuals--Ah!" she clapped

hands on her knees, "here comes your doctor; I could fancy I see a

pointed light on his head. Men of science, my Sandra, are always the

humanest."

The chill air of wind preceding thunder was driving round the head of the

vale, and Mr. Sedley, wrapped in furs, and feebly remonstrating with his

medical adviser, stepped into his carriage. The doctor followed him,

giving a grave recognition of Vittoria's gaze. Both gentlemen raised

their hats to the ladies, who alighted as soon as they had gone in the

direction of the Vintschgau road.

"One has only to furnish you with money, my Beppo," said Vittoria,

complimenting his quick apprehensiveness. "Buy bread and cakes at one of

the shops, and buy wine. You will find me where you can, when you have

seen him safe. I have no idea of where my home will be. Perhaps England."

"Italy, Italy! faint heart," said Laura.

Furnished with money, Beppo rolled away gaily.

The doubt was in Laura whether an Englishman's wits were to be relied on

in such an emergency; but she admitted that the doctor had looked full

enough of serious meaning, and that the Englishman named Merthyr Powys

was keen and ready. They sat a long half-hour, that thumped itself out

like an alarm-bell, under the poplars, by the clamouring Passeyr,

watching the roll and spring of the waters, and the radiant foam, while

band-music played to a great company of visitors, and sounds of thunder

drew near. Over the mountains above the Adige, the leaden fingers of an

advance of the thunder-cloud pushed slowly, and on a sudden a mighty gale

sat heaped blank on the mountain-top and blew. Down went the heads of the

poplars, the river staggered in its leap, the vale was shuddering grey.

It was like the transformation in a fairy tale; Beauty had taken her old

cloak about her, and bent to calamity. The poplars streamed their length

sideways, and in the pauses of the strenuous wind nodded and dashed

wildly and white over the dead black water, that waxed in foam and

hissed, showing its teeth like a beast enraged. Laura and Vittoria joined

hands and struggled for shelter. The tent of a travelling circus from the

South, newly-pitched on a grassplot near the river, was caught up and

whirled in the air and flung in the face of a marching guard of soldiery,

whom it swathed and bore sheer to earth, while on them and around them a

line of poplars fell flat, the wind whistling over them. Laura directed

Vittoria's eyes to the sight. "See," she said, and her face was set hard

with cold and excitement, so that she looked a witch in the uproar;

"would you not say the devil is loose now Angelo is abroad?" Thunder and

lightning possessed the vale, and then a vertical rain. At the first

gleam of sunlight, Laura and Vittoria walked up to the Laubengasse--the

street of the arcades, where they made purchases of numerous needless

articles, not daring to enter the Italian's shop. A woman at a fruitstall

opposite to it told them that no carriage could have driven up there.

During their great perplexity, mud and rain-stained soldiers, the same

whom they had seen borne to earth by the flying curtain, marched before

the shop; the shop and the house were searched; the Italian and his old

liming wife were carried away.

"Tell me now, that storm was not Angelo's friend!" Laura muttered.

"Can he have escaped?" said Vittoria.

"He is 'on horseback.'" Laura quoted the Italian proverb to signify that

he had flown; how, she could not say, and none could inform her. The joy

of their hearts rose in one fountain.

"I shall feel better blood in my body from this moment," Laura said; and

Vittoria, "Oh! we can be strong, if we only resolve."

"You want to sing?"

"I do."

"I shall find pleasure in your voice now."

"The wicked voice!"

"Yes, the very wicked voice! But I shall be glad to hear it. You can sing

to-night, and drown those Lenkensteins."

"If my Carlo could hear me!"

"Ah!" sighed the signora, musing. "He is in prison now. I remember him,

the dearest little lad, fencing with my husband for exercise after they

had been writing all day. When Giacomo was imprisoned, Carlo sat outside

the prison walls till it was time for him to enter; his chin and upper

lip were smooth as a girl's. Giacomo said to him, 'May you always have

the power of going out, or not have a wife waiting for you.' Here they

come." (She spoke of tears.) "It's because I am joyful. The channel for

them has grown so dry that they prick and sting. Oh, Sandra! it would be

pleasant to me if we might both be buried for seven days, and have one

long howl of weakness together. A little bite of satisfaction makes me so

tired. I believe there's something very bad for us in our always being at

war, and never, never gaining ground. Just one spark of triumph

intoxicates us. Look at all those people pouring out again. They are the

children of fair weather. I hope the state of their health does not

trouble them too much. Vienna sends consumptive patients here. If you

regard them attentively, you will observe that they have an anxious air.

Their constitutions are not sound; they fear they may die."

Laura's irony was unforced; it was no more than a subtle discord

naturally struck from the scene by a soul in contrast with it.

They beheld the riding forth of troopers and a knot of officers hotly

conversing together. At another point the duchess and the Lenkenstein

ladies, Count Lenkenstein, Count Serabiglione, and Wilfrid paced up and

down, waiting for music. Laura left the public places and crossed an

upper bridge over the Passeyr, near the castle, by which route she

skirted vines and dropped over sloping meadows to some shaded boulders

where the Passeyr found a sandy bay, and leaped in transparent green, and

whitened and swung twisting in a long smooth body down a narrow chasm,

and noised below. The thundering torrent stilled their sensations: and

the water, making battle against great blocks of porphyry and granite,

caught their thoughts. So strong was the impression of it on Vittoria's

mind, that for hours after, every image she conceived seemed proper to

the inrush and outpour; the elbowing, the tossing, the foaming, the burst

on stones, and silvery bubbles under and silvery canopy above, the

chattering and huzzaing; all working on to the one-toned fall beneath the

rainbow on the castle-rock.

Next day, the chasseur Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz deposed in full

company at Sonnenberg, that, obeying Count Serabiglione's instructions,

he had gone down to the city, and had there seen Lieutenant Pierson with

the ladies in front of the hotel; he had followed the English carriage,

which took up a man who was standing ready on crutches at the corner of

the Laubengasse, and drove rapidly out of the North-western gate, leading

to Schlanders and Mals and the Engadine. He had witnessed the transfer of

the crippled man from one carriage to another, and had raised shouts and

given hue and cry, but the intervention of the storm had stopped his

pursuit.

He was proceeding to say what his suppositions were. Count Lenkenstein

lifted his finger for Wilfrid to follow him out of the room. Count

Serabiglione went at their heels. Then Count Lenkenstein sent for his

wife, whom Anna and Lena accompanied.

"How many persons are you going to ruin in the course of your crusade, my

dear?" the duchess said to Laura.

"Dearest, I am penitent when I succeed," said Laura.

"If that young man has been assisting you, he is irretrievably ruined."

"I am truly sorry for him."

"As for me, the lectures I shall get in Vienna are terrible to think of.

This is the consequence of being the friend of both parties, and a

peace-maker."

Count Serabiglione returned alone from the scene at the examination,

rubbing his hands and nodding affably to his daughter. He maliciously

declined to gratify the monster of feminine curiosity in the lump, and

doled out the scene piecemeal. He might state, he observed, that it was

he who had lured Beppo to listen at the door during the examination of

the prisoners; and who had then planted a spy on him--following the

dictation of precepts exceedingly old. "We are generally beaten, duchess;

I admit it; and yet we generally contrive to show the brain. As I say,

wed brains to brute force!--but my Laura prefers to bring about a contest

instead of an union, so that somebody is certain to be struck, and"--the

count spread out his arms and bowed his head--"deserves the blow." He

informed them that Count Lenkenstein had ordered Lieutenant Pierson down

to Meran, and that the lieutenant might expect to be cashiered within

five days. "What does it matter?" he addressed Vittoria. "It is but a

shuffling of victims; Lieutenant Pierson in the place of Guidascarpi! I

do not object."

Count Lenkenstein withdrew his wife and sisters from Sonnenberg

instantly. He sent an angry message of adieu to the duchess, informing

her that he alone was responsible for the behaviour of the ladies of his

family. The poor duchess wept. "This means that I shall be summoned to

Vienna for a scolding, and have to meet my husband," she said to Laura,

who permitted herself to be fondled, and barely veiled her exultation in

her apology for the mischief she had done. An hour after the departure of

the Lenkensteins, the castle was again officially visited by Colonel

Zofel. Vittoria and Laura received an order to quit the district of Meran

before sunset. The two firebrands dropped no tears. "I really am sorry

for others when I succeed," said Laura, trying to look sad upon her

friend.

"No; the heart is eaten out of you both by excitement," said the duchess.

Her tender parting, "Love me," in the ear of Vittoria, melted one heart

of the two.

Count Serabiglione continued to be buoyed up by his own and his

daughter's recent display of a superior intellectual dexterity until the

carriage was at the door and Laura presented her cheek to him. He said,

"You will know me a wise man when I am off the table." His gesticulations

expressed "Ruin, headlong ruin!" He asked her how she could expect him to

be for ever repairing her follies. He was going to Vienna; how could he

dare to mention her name there? Not even in a trifle would she consent to

be subordinate to authority. Laura checked her replies--the surrendering,

of a noble Italian life to the Austrians was such a trifle! She begged

only that a poor wanderer might depart with a father's blessing. The

count refused to give it; he waved her off in a fury of reproof; and so

got smoothly over the fatal moment when money, or the promise of money,

is commonly extracted from parental sources, as Laura explained his odd

behaviour to her companion. The carriage-door being closed, he regained

his courtly composure; his fury was displaced by a chiding finger, which

he presently kissed. Father. Bernardus was on the steps beside the

duchess, and his blessing had not been withheld from Vittoria, though he

half confessed to her that she was a mystery in his mind, and would

always be one.

"He can understand robust hostility," Laura said, when Vittoria recalled

the look of his benevolent forehead and drooping eyelids; "but robust

ductility does astonish him. He has not meddled with me; yet I am the one

of the two who would be fair prey for an enterprising spiritual father,

as the destined roan of heaven will find out some day."

She bent and smote her lap. "How little they know us, my darling! They

take fever for strength, and calmness for submission. Here is the world

before us, and I feel that such a man, were he to pounce on me now, might

snap me up and lock me in a praying-box with small difficulty. And I am

the inveterate rebel! What is it nourishes you and keeps you always

aiming straight when you are alone? Once in Turin, I shall feel that I am

myself. Out of Italy I have a terrible craving for peace. It seems here

as if I must lean down to him, my beloved, who has left me."

Vittoria was in alarm lest Wilfrid should accost her while she drove from

gate to gate of the city. They passed under the archway of the gate

leading up to Schloss Tyrol, and along the road bordered by vines. An old

peasant woman stopped them with the signal of a letter in her hand. "Here

it is," said Laura, and Vittoria could not help smiling at her shrewd

anticipation of it.

"May I follow?"

Nothing more than that was written.

But the bearer of the missive had been provided with a lead pencil to

obtain the immediate reply.

"An admirable piece of foresight!" Laura's honest exclamation burst

forth.

Vittoria had to look in Laura's face before she could gather her will to

do the cruel thing which was least cruel. She wrote firmly:--"Never

follow me."