half of
Italy, and Italy has need of both of us. If Italy needs my life, she is
welcome to it. If she had need of yours, I would say not a word to hold
you back. But your place is at home. Is it not so, Fyffe?"

I was a selfish advocate enough, but he had reason on his side, and I
should have been blind indeed not to have seen it.

"It will be wiser--wiser far," I urged, "to stay at home. To speak
plainly, you could not fail, in any sudden emergency, to hamper your
father's steps. He would be nervous about you, and anxious for your
safety."

"But there is no need for that," she cried, with a tender impatience. "I
am not afraid. If I were a man you should not talk to me so."

"No," said the count, rising and folding his arms about her. "If you
were a man, my dearest, you should have your way."

"Oh," she said, with a downward gesture of her clinched hands, "I
hate these thoughts about women. Why should we not have courage? Why
shouldn't we share danger with those we care about? I am not afraid of
danger. But I could keep you away from it when there was no reason for
it."

"Violet," said her father, gently, "I am not inclined to be rash; not
now. I have had twenty years of warning, remember."

"Remember, poor dear!" she cried, with both arms round his neck and her
face hidden on his shoulder, "I have never forgotten for a moment since
I knew that you were alive. But don't let me be so useless. Let me do
something. Let me be near you. Don't leave me behind."

"You do much already," said the count, soothing her as he spoke with one
loving hand upon her flushed and tear-stained cheek. "You surrender your
father and your plighted husband, and a great slice of your fortune. Ah,
dearest, you do enough!"

"I do nothing," she declared. "Oh, I wish I were a man!"

"So do not I," said the count. "I should quarrel with any wish the
fulfilment of which robbed me of my daughter."

She moved away from him gently, and dried her eyes. Her father watched
her solicitously, and by-and-by she walked to the window of the room and
said, in a tone of commonplace: "You cannot prevent me from following
you."

"I can forbid it," he said, in a tone of pain.

"And I can follow all the same," she answered. He looked at her with
a glance in which I read both surprise and grief, and for a minute he
found no answer. When she moved to look at him he had turned away,
and did not see how timid and beseeching her eyes were, for all the
reb