tle. The
result has already been described in the words of the bold Baron
himself.

But even this great victory did not reassure the ladies. Dreading
another visit, they hurried away to a hotel, leaving the maids to
follow with the luggage as soon as possible. On the following morning
they had left the city.

Events so very exciting as these had produced a very natural effect
upon the mind of Ethel. They had thrown her thoughts out of their old
groove, and fixed them in a new one. Besides, the fact that she was
actually leaving the man who had caused her so much sorrow was already
a partial relief. She had dreaded meeting him so much that she had
been forced to keep herself a prisoner. A deep grief still remained in
her heart; but, at any rate, there was now some pleasure to be felt,
if only of a superficial kind.

As for Mrs. Willoughby, in spite of her self-reproach about her purely
imaginary neglect of Minnie, she felt such an extraordinary relief
that it affected all her nature. The others might feel fatigue from
the journey. Not she. She was willing to continue the journey for an
indefinite period, so long as she had the sweet consciousness that she
was bearing Minnie farther and farther away from the grasp of "that
horrid man." The consequence was, that she was lively, lovely,
brilliant, cheerful, and altogether delightful. She was as tender to
Minnie as a mother could be. She was lavish in her promises of what
she would do for her. She chatted gayly with Ethel about a thousand
things, and was delighted to find that Ethel reciprocated. She rallied
Lady Dalrymple on her silence, and congratulated her over and over, in
spite of Minnie's frowns, on the success of her generalship. And so at
last the weary Campagna was traversed, and the two carriages began to
ascend among the mountains.

Several other travelers were passing over that Campagna road, and in
the same direction. They were not near enough for their faces to be
discerned, but the ladies could look back and see the signs of their
presence. First there was a carriage with two men, and about two miles
behind another carriage with two other men; while behind these, again,
there rode a solitary horseman, who was gradually gaining on the other
travelers.

Now, if it had been possible for Mrs. Willoughby to look back and
discern the faces of the travelers who were moving along the road
behind her, what a sudden overturn there would have been in her
feeling