they were shaken by rumours of
their sister's misconduct. An Austrian name was allied to hers in busy
mouths. A lady, their distant relative, whose fame was light, had
withdrawn her from the silent house, and made display of her. Since she
had seen more than an Italian girl should see, the brothers proposed to
the nobleman her betrothed to break the treaty; but he was of a mind to
hurry on the marriage, and recollecting now that she was but a woman, the
brothers fixed a day for her espousals, tenderly, without reproach. She
had the choice of taking the vows or surrendering her hand. Her old nurse
prayed for the day of her espousals to come with a quicker step.

One night she surprised Count Paul Lenkenstein at Clelia's window.
Rinaldo was in the garden below. He moved to the shadow of a cypress, and
was seen moving by the old nurse. The lover took the single kiss he had
come for, was led through the chamber, and passed unchallenged into the
street. Clelia sat between locked doors and darkened windows, feeling
colder to the brothers she had been reared with than to all other men
upon the earth. They sent for her after a lapse of hours. Her old nurse
was kneeling at their feet. Rinaldo asked for the name of her lover. She
answered with it. Angelo said, "It will be better for you to die: but if
you cannot do so easy a thing as that, prepare widow's garments." They
forced her to write three words to Count Paul, calling him to her window
at midnight. Rinaldo fetched a priest: Angelo laid out two swords. An
hour before the midnight, Clelia's old nurse raised the house with her
cries. Clelia was stretched dead in her chamber. The brothers kissed her
in turn, and sat, one at her head, one at her feet. At midnight her lover
stood among them. He was gravely saluted, and bidden to look upon the
dead body. Angelo said to him, "Had she lived you should have wedded her
hand. She is gone of her own free choice, and one of us follows her."
With the sweat of anguish on his forehead, Count Paul drew sword. The
window was barred; six male domestics of the household held high lights
in the chamber; the priest knelt beside one corpse, awaiting the other.

Vittoria's imagination could not go beyond that scene, but she looked out
on the brother of the slain youth with great pity, and with a strange
curiosity. The example given by Clelia of the possible love of an Italian
girl for the white uniform, set her thinking whether so monstrous a fact