t she killed three sets
a year--loved them well, notwithstanding. Merthyr saw enough of her to
feel that she was one of the weak creatures who are strong through our
greater weakness; and, either by intuition or quick wit, too lively
and too subtle to be caught by simple suspicion. She even divined that
reflection might tell him she had evaded him by an artifice--a piece
of gross cajolery; and said, laughing: "Concerning friendship, I could
offer it to a boy, like Carlo Ammiani; not to you, signor Powys. I know
that I must check a youth, and I am on my guard. I should be eternally
tormented to discover whether your armour was proof."

"I dare say that a lady who had those torments would soon be able to
make them mine," said Merthyr.

"You could not pay a fairer compliment to some one else," she remarked.
In truth, the candid personal avowal seemed to her to hold up Vittoria's
sacred honour in a crystal, and the more she thought of it, the more she
respected him, for his shrewd intelligence, if not for his sincerity;
but on the whole she fancied him a loyal friend, not solely a clever
maker of phrases; and she was pleased with herself for thinking such a
matter possible, in spite of her education.

"I do most solemnly hope that you may not have to sustain Countess
Alessandra under any affliction whatsoever," she said at parting.

Violetta had escaped an exposure--a rank and naked accusation of
her character and deeds. She feared nothing but that, being quite
indifferent to opinion; a woman who would not have thought it
preternaturally sad to have to walk as a penitent in the streets, with
the provision of a very thick veil to cover her. She had escaped, but
the moment she felt herself free, she was surprised by a sharp twinge of
remorse. She summoned her maid to undress her, and smelt her favourite
perfume, and lay in her bed, to complete her period of rest, closing
her eyes there with a child's faith in pillows. Flying lights and
blood-blotches rushed within a span of her forehead. She met this
symptom promptly with a medical receipt; yet she had no sleep; nor
would coffee give her sleep. She shrank from opium as deleterious to the
constitution, and her mind settled on music as the remedy.

Some time after her craving for it had commenced, an Austrian foot
regiment, marching to the drum, passed under her windows. The fife is a
merry instrument; fife and drum colour the images of battle gaily; but
the dull ringing A