t him, even if on the whole it were the least
surprising, was the survival of the patriotic impulse in his mind. It
seemed as if nothing could quench that, and as if all his suffering had
served only to lend new fuel to that sacred flame. By this time he was
deep in all our councils, the most active, and at once the wariest and
most ardent of our leaders. I was pledged to the cause of Italy heart
and soul, and was, I think, as thoroughly and % passionately devoted
to her service as if the call of blood had sounded in me. I identified
myself with the hopes of Miss Rossano and her father, and I was in all
things their loyal servant and coadjutor.

I suppose I have made it clear by this time that I had never any very
great esteem or affection for Bru-now. He was in the thick of affairs,
and knew as much of our intentions and of our actual movements as any
man among us. It is no credit to me that I was willing to suspect him,
and that I distrusted him from the beginning. I never thought him likely
to be guilty of deliberate treason, but I always feared 'his rash and
boastful tongue, and I confess that I did something here and there to
inspire my comrades with the sense of my own mistrust. I have not the
slightest doubt that he knew of this. I certainly never took any pains
to disguise it from him, and I dare say that in what followed he partly
justified his own action in his own mind by my dislike of him and his
own dislike of me.

Brunow was a queerish sort of study, and I honestly believe that half
the harm he did sprang out of the only little bit of good I was ever
able to discover in him. He would do almost anything to secure anybody's
favorable opinion, and neither his judgment nor his conscience--if he
had either one or the other--stood in the way of this amiable weakness.
He was more amenable to flattery than a child, and was moved by it as
easily to good as to evil. The misfortune was that those who would have
cared to influence him in the right direction disdained to tickle his
foible, while those who fooled him to his own ruin flattered him to the
top of his bent.

I can't help thinking that for a long time the poor feather-head
attached a considerable value to my opinion, and that he was anxious in
his own way to conciliate my friendship. He knew what I thought about
him, and yet he sought my acquaintance, and did what he could to
propitiate me and to secure my good-will; but at last an open breach
declared it