ork in hearty kindliness to rescue him from
what she termed "shipwreck with that disastrous Republican crew." He had
obtained greater ascendency over her than she liked; yet she would have
forgiven it, as well as her consequent slight deviation from direct
allegiance to her masters in various cities, but for Carlo's commanding
personal coolness. She who had tamed a madman by her beauty, was
outraged, and not unnaturally, by the indifference of a former lover.

Later in the day, Laura and Vittoria, with Agostino, reached the villa;
and Adela put her lips to Vittoria's ear, whispering: "Naughty! when are
you to lose your liberty to turn men's heads?" and then she heaved a sigh
with Wilfrid's name. She had formed the acquaintance of Countess
d'Isorella in Turin, she said, and satisfactorily repeated her lesson,
but with a blush. She was little more than a shade to Vittoria, who
wondered what she had to live for. After the early evening dinner, when
sunlight and the colours of the sun were beyond the western mountains,
they pushed out on the lake. A moon was overhead, seeming to drop lower
on them as she filled with light.

Agostino and Vittoria fell upon their theme of discord, as usual--the
King of Sardinia.

"We near the vesper hour, my daughter," said Agostino; "you would provoke
me to argumentation in heaven itself. I am for peace. I remember looking
down on two cats with arched backs in the solitary arena of the Verona
amphitheatre. We men, my Carlo, will not, in the decay of time, so
conduct ourselves."

Vittoria looked on Laura and thought of the cannon-sounding hours, whose
echoes rolled over their slaughtered hope. The sun fell, the moon shone,
and the sun would rise again, but Italy lay face to earth. They had seen
her together before the enemy. That recollection was a joy that stood,
though the winds beat at it, and the torrents. She loved her friend's
worn eyelids and softly-shut mouth; the after-glow of battle seemed on
them; the silence of the field of carnage under heaven;--and the patient
turning of Laura's eyes this way and that to speakers upon common things,
covered the despair of her heart as with a soldier's cloak.

Laura met the tender study of Vittoria's look, and smiled.

They neared the Villa Ricciardi, and heard singing. The villa was lighted
profusely, so that it made a little mock-sunset on the lake.

"Irma!" said Vittoria, astonished at the ring of a well-known voice that
shot up in fire