make peace with the
French people."

"Most willingly would he do so if the French people would let him. But
it must be through a French Government legally chosen by the people.
And they have chosen none! A mob at Paris sets up a provisional
administration, that commences by declaring that it will not give up 'an
inch of its territory nor a stone of its fortresses.' No terms of peace
can be made with such men holding such talk." After a few words more
over the state of public affairs,--in which Graham expressed the English
side of affairs, which was all for generosity to the vanquished; and the
Count argued much more ably on the German, which was all for security
against the aggressions of a people that would not admit itself to be
vanquished,--the short interview closed.

As Graham at night pursued his journey to Vienna, there came into his
mind Isaura's song of the Neapolitan fisherman. Had he, too, been blind
to the image on the rock? Was it possible that all the while he had been
resisting the impulse of his heart, until the discharge of the mission
entrusted to him freed his choice and decided his fortunes, the very
person of whom he was in search had been before him, then to be for
ever won, lost to him now for ever? Could Isaura Cicogna be the child
of Louise Duval by Richard King? She could not have been her child by
Cicogna: the dates forbade that hypothesis. Isaura must have been five
years old when Louise married the Italian. Arrived at Milan, Graham
quickly ascertained that the post to which Ludovico Cicogna had been
removed was in Verona, and that he had there died eight years ago.
Nothing was to be learned as to his family or his circumstances at the
time of his death. The people of whose history we know the least are
the relations we refuse to acknowledge. Graham continued his journey
to Verona. There he found on inquiry that the Cicognas had occupied an
apartment in a house which stood at the outskirts of the town and had
been since pulled down to make way for some public improvements. But
his closest inquiries could gain him no satisfactory answers to the
all-important questions as to Ludovico Cicogna's family. His political
alienation from the Italian cause, which was nowhere more ardently
espoused than at Verona, had rendered him very unpopular. He visited at
no Italian houses. Such society as he had was confined to the Austrian
military within the Quadrilateral or at Venice, to which city he made
f