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 cr