-of-war on the
following day, also homeward bound. Giovanni wrote to Angela
Chiaromonte by the former and went on board the Government vessel
twenty-four hours afterwards. He himself sent no telegram, because he
did not know where his brothers were and he feared lest a telegraphic
message might give Angela a bad shock, if it reached her at all.
Moreover, he had no news of her and could get no information whatever,
so that he addressed his letter to Madame Bernard's old lodgings on
the mere possibility that it might reach its destination.

Any one might have supposed that the news of his escape would have
been in the papers before he reached Italy, for it was telegraphed to
the War Office in Rome by the officer in command of the force at
Massowah. But the Minister chose to keep the intelligence a secret
till Giovanni's arrival, because he expected to gain much information
from him and feared lest the newspapers should get hold of him and
learn facts from him which would be more useful to Italy if not made
public; and when the Italian Government wishes to keep a secret, it
can do so quite as well as any other, to the despair of the public
press.

The consequence of the Minister's instructions was that Giovanni was
met by a superior officer who came on board the man-of-war at Naples
in order to forestall any possible attempt on the part of
correspondents to get hold of him, and also for the purpose of giving
him further directions for his conduct. He was to proceed to Rome at
once, and the Minister would receive him privately on the following
day at twelve o'clock. He was recommended not to go to an hotel, but
to put up with his brother, who, as he now learned, was at Monteverde,
and had been privately informed of his arrival and warned to be
discreet.

The mail steamer which had brought Giovanni's letter to Madame Bernard
had stopped at Port Said, Alexandria, and Messina, but the man-of-war
came direct to Naples, and though slower than the packet-boat, arrived
there only a few hours later. Madame Bernard's inquiries, made through
the old colonel whose daughter she had formerly taught, proved
fruitless, because the War Office would not allow Giovanni's coming to
be known, and the result was that she took the letter home with her in
her bag, and spent the evening in a very disturbed state of mind,
debating with herself as to what she ought to do. She would have given
anything to open the envelope, if only to see the dat