en Gamba wait
on him after the performance. He had been curious to hear what
impression Alfieri's drama had produced upon the hunchback; but now any
interruption seemed unwelcome, and he turned to Gamba with a gesture of
dismissal.

The latter however remained on the threshold.

"Your Highness," he said, "the bookseller Andreoni craves the privilege
of an audience."

"Andreoni? At this hour?"

"For reasons so urgent that he makes no doubt of your Highness's
consent; and to prove his good faith, and the need of presenting himself
at so undue an hour, and in this private manner, he charged me to give
this to your Highness."

He laid in the Duke's hand a small object in blackened silver, which on
nearer inspection proved to be the ducal coat-of-arms.

Odo stood gazing fixedly at this mysterious token, which seemed to come
as an answer to his inmost thoughts. His heart beat high with confused
hopes and fears, and he could hardly control the voice in which he
answered: "Bid Andreoni come to me."

4.4.

The bookseller began by excusing himself for the liberty he had taken.
He explained that the Signorina Fulvia Vivaldi, in whose behalf he came,
was in urgent need of aid, and had begged him to wait on the Duke as
soon as the court had risen from the play.

"She is in Pianura, then?" Odo exclaimed.

"Since yesterday, your Highness. Three days since she was ordered by the
police to leave Milan within twenty-four hours, and she came at once to
Pianura, knowing that my wife and I would gladly receive her. But today
we learned that the Holy Office was advised of her presence here, and of
the reason of her banishment from Lombardy; and this fresh danger has
forced her to implore your Highness's protection."

Andreoni went on to explain that the publication of her father's book
was the immediate cause of Fulvia's persecution. The Origin of
Civilisation, which had been printed some months previously in
Amsterdam, had stirred Italy more profoundly than any book since
Beccaria's great work on Crime and Punishment. The author's historical
investigations were but a pretext for the development of his political
theories, which were set forth with singular daring and audacity, and
supported by all the arguments that his long study of the past
commanded. The temperate and judicial tone which he had succeeded in
preserving enhanced the effect of his arraignment of Church and state,
and while his immense erudition commended his