e done
but that the revel broke, a great curl of her hair blew across my lips.
I was bold,--I was heated, too, with this half-secret life of my heart,
this warm blood that went leaping so riotously through my veins, and yet
so silently,--I took my dagger from my belt and severed the curl. See,
friend! will you look at it? It is like the little gold snakes of the
Campagna, is it not? each thread, so fine and fair, a separate ray of
light: once it was part of her! See how it twists round my hand! Haste!
haste! let me put it up, lest I go mad!--Where was I?

I busied myself again in the work to be done; because of our victory we
must not rest; once more all went forward. I saw the Austrian woman only
from a window, or in a church, or as she walked in the gardens, for many
days. Then the times grew hotter; I left the place, and lived with stern
alarums; and thither she also came. I never sought what sent her. She
was with the wounded, with the dying. Then the need of her was past, and
she and all the others took their way. At length that also came to an
end.

We were in Rome,--and thither, some time previously, she had gone.

One night, our business for the day was over, our plans for the morrow
laid, our messages received, our messengers despatched, and those who
had been conspirators and now bade fair to be saviours were sleeping.
Sleep seemed to fold the world; each bough and twig was silent in
repose; the spectral moonlight itself slept as it bathed the air. I
alone wandered and waked. With me there were too many cares for rest;
work kept me on the alert; to court slumber at once was not easy after
the nervous tension of duty. I was torn, too, with conflicting feelings:
half my soul went one way in devotion to my country, half my soul
swerved to the other as I thought of the Austrian woman. I grew tired of
the streets and squares; something that should be fragrant and bowery
attracted me. I mounted on the broken water-god of a dry bath and leaped
a garden-wall.

No sooner was I there than I knew why I had come. This was her garden.

Heart of Heaven! how all things spoke of her! How the great white roses
hung their doubly heavy heads and poured their perfume out to her! how
the sprays shivered as T spoke the name she owned! how the nightingales
ceased for a breath their warbling as she rustled down a fragrant path
and met me! All her hair was swept back in one great mass and held by an
ivory comb; a white cloak wrap