.

'You do not know me,' said he.

'You are the Countess Ammiani's nephew.'

'I have, as I had the honour to tell you yesterday, the blood of your
lover in my veins.'

'Do not speak of him now, I pray,' said Vittoria; 'I want my strength!

'Signorina, the man we have left behind us is his enemy;--mine. I would
rather see you dead than alive in his hands. Do you fear death?'

'Sometimes; when I am half awake,' she confessed. 'I dislike thinking of
it.'

He asked her curiously: 'Have you never seen it?'

'Death?' said she, and changed a shudder to a smile; 'I died last night.'

Angelo smiled with her. 'I saw you die!

'It seems a hundred years ago.'

'Or half-a-dozen minutes. The heart counts everything'

'Was I very much liked by the people, Signor Angelo?'

'They love you.'

'I have done them no good.'

'Every possible good. And now, mine is the duty to protect you.'

'And yesterday we were strangers! Signor Angelo, you spoke of sbirri.
There is no rising in Bologna. Why are they after you? You look too
gentle to give them cause.'

'Do I look gentle? But what I carry is no burden. Who that saw you last
night would know you for Camilla? You will hear of my deeds, and judge.
We shall soon have men upon the road; you must be hidden. See, there:
there are our colours in the sky. Austria cannot wipe them out. Since I
was a boy I have always slept in a bed facing East, to keep that truth
before my eyes. Black and yellow drop to the earth: green, white, and red
mount to heaven. If more of my countrymen saw these meanings!--but they
are learning to. My tutor called them Germanisms. If so, I have stolen a
jewel from my enemy.'

Vittoria mentioned the Chief.

'Yes,' said Angelo; 'he has taught us to read God's handwriting. I revere
him. It's odd; I always fancy I hear his voice from a dungeon, and seeing
him looking at one light. He has a fault: he does not comprehend the
feelings of a nobleman. Do you think he has made a convert of our Carlo
in that? Never! High blood is ineradicable.'

'I am not of high blood,' said Vittoria.

'Countess Ammiani overlooks it. And besides, low blood may be elevated
without the intervention of a miracle. You have a noble heart, signorina.
It may be the will of God that you should perpetuate our race. All of us
save Carlo Ammiani seem to be falling.'

Vittoria bent her head, distressed by a broad beam of sunlight. The
country undulating to the plain lay under them, the g