emotion,
under the mask of his hard face, as a lover hearing music. "I read
English," he remarked.

After he had drawn the seal three or four times slowly over the lamp, the
green wax bubbled and unsnapped. Vittoria had written the following
lines in reply to her old English friend:--

"Forgive me, and do not ask to see me until we have passed the
fifteenth of the month. You will see me that night at La Scala. I
wish to embrace you, but I am miserable to think of your being in
Milan. I cannot yet tell you where my residence is. I have not met
your brother. If he writes to me it will make me happy, but I
refuse to see him. I will explain to him why. Let him not try to
see me. Let him send by this messenger. I hope he will contrive to
be out of Milan all this month. Pray let me influence you to go for
a time. I write coldly; I am tired, and forget my English. I do
not forget my friends. I have you close against my heart. If it
were prudent, and it involved me alone, I would come to you without
a moment's loss of time. Do know that I am not changed, and am your
affectionate

"Emilia."

When Barto Rizzo had finished reading, he went from the chamber and blew
his voice into what Luigi supposed to be a hollow tube.

"This letter," he said, coming back, "is a repetition of the Signorina
Vittoria's warning to her friends on the Motterone. The English lady's
brother, who is in the Austrian service, was there, you say?"

Luigi considered that, having lately been believed in, he could not
afford to look untruthful, and replied with a sprightly "Assuredly."

"He was there, and he read the writing on the paper?"

"Assuredly: right out loud, between puff-puff of his cigar."

"His name is Lieutenant Pierson. Did not Antonio-Pericles tell you his
name? He will write to her: you will be the bearer of his letter to the
signorina. I must see her reply. She is a good patriot; so am I; so are
you. Good patriots must be prudent. I tell you, I must see her reply to
this Lieutenant Pierson." Barto stuck his thumb and finger astride
Luigi's shoulder and began rocking him gently, with a horrible meditative
expression. "You will have to accomplish this, my Luigi. All fair excuses
will be made, if you fail generally. This you must do. Keep upright while
I am speaking to you! The excuses will be made; but I, not you, must make
them: bear that in mind. Is there any person whom you,