re thoughts had enveloped him
in actual darkness.

It was late when at length he turned again into the Piazza Castello,
which was brightly lit and still thronged with pleasure-seekers. As he
approached, the crowd divided to make way for three or four handsome
travelling-carriages, preceded by linkmen and liveried out-riders and
followed by a dozen mounted equerries. The people, evidently in the
humour to greet every incident of the streets as part of a show prepared
for their diversion, cheered lustily as the carriages dashed across the
square; and Odo, turning to a man at his elbow, asked who the
distinguished visitors might be.

"Why, sir," said the other laughing, "I understand it is only an
Embassage from some neighbouring state; but when our good people are in
their Easter mood they are ready to take a mail-coach for Elijah's
chariot and their wives' scolding for the Gift of Tongues."

Odo spent a restless night face to face with his first humiliation.
Though the girl's rebuff had cut him to the quick, it was the vision of
the havoc his folly had wrought that stood between him and sleep. To
have endangered the liberty, the very life, perhaps, of a man he loved
and venerated, and who had welcomed him without heed of personal risk,
this indeed was bitter to his youthful self-sufficiency. The thought of
Giannone's fate was like a cold clutch at his heart; nor was there any
balm in knowing that it was at Fulvia's request he had been so freely
welcomed; for he was persuaded that, whatever her previous feeling might
have been, the scene just enacted must render him forever odious to her.
Turn whither it would, his tossing vanity found no repose; and dawn rose
for him on a thorny waste of disillusionment.

Cantapresto broke in early on this vigil, flushed with the importance of
a letter from the Countess Valdu. The lady summoned her son to dinner,
"to meet an old friend and distinguished visitor"; and a verbal message
bade Odo come early and wear his new uniform. He was too well acquainted
with his mother's exaggerations to attach much importance to the
summons; but being glad of an excuse to escape his daily visit at the
Palazzo Tournanches, he sent Donna Laura word that he would wait on her
at two.

On the very threshold of Casa Valdu, Odo perceived that unwonted
preparations were afoot. The shabby liveries of the servants had been
refurbished and the marble floor newly scoured; and he found his mother
seated in t