er. It was a relief to him to behold in the Piazza the
Englishman who had exchanged cards with him on the Motterone. Captain
Gambier advanced upon a ceremonious bow, saying frankly, in a more
colloquial French than he had employed at their first interview, that he
had to apologize for his conduct, and to request monsieur's excuse. 'If,'
he pursued, 'that lady is the person whom I knew formerly in England as
Mademoiselle Belloni, and is now known as Mademoiselle Vittoria Campa,
may I beg you to inform her that, according to what I have heard, she is
likely to be in some danger to-morrow?' What the exact nature of the
danger was, Captain Gambier could not say.

Ammiani replied: 'She is in need of all her friends,' and took the
pressure of the Englishman's hand, who would fair have asked more but for
the stately courtesy of the Italian's withdrawing salute. Ammiani could
no longer doubt that Vittoria's implication in the conspiracy was known.

CHAPTER XI

LAURA PIAVENI

After dark on the same day antecedent to the outbreak, Vittoria, with her
faithful Beppo at her heels, left her mother to run and pass one
comforting hour in the society of the Signora Laura Piaveni and her
children.

There were two daughters of a parasitical Italian nobleman, of whom one
had married the patriot Giacomo Piaveni, and one an Austrian diplomatist,
the Commendatore Graf von Lenkenstein. Count Serabiglione was
traditionally parasitical. His ancestors all had moved in Courts. The
children of the House had illustrious sponsors. The House itself was a
symbolical sunflower constantly turning toward Royalty. Great excuses are
to be made for this, the last male descendant, whose father in his youth
had been an Imperial page, and who had been nursed in the conception that
Italy (or at least Lombardy) was a natural fief of Austria, allied by
instinct and by interest to the holders of the Alps. Count Serabiglione
mixed little with his countrymen,--the statement might be inversed,--but
when, perchance, he was among them, he talked willingly of the Tedeschi,
and voluntarily declared them to be gross, obstinate, offensive-bears, in
short. At such times he would intimate in any cordial ear that the
serpent was probably a match for the bear in a game of skill, and that
the wisdom of the serpent was shown in his selection of the bear as his
master, since, by the ordination of circumstances, master he must have.
The count would speak pityingly of the