Well, thank goodness he didn't stand in those ranks!"

Wilfrid murmured, puffing thoughtfully over the picture they presented
to his memory.

Merthyr then tried to hint to him that he had a sort of dull suspicion
of Carlo's being in personal danger, but of what kind he could not say.
He mentioned Weisspriess by name; and Nagen; and Countess Anna. Wilfrid
said, "I'll find out if there's anything, only don't be fancying it. The
man's in a bad hole at Brescia. Weisspriess, I believe, is at Verona.
He's an honourable fellow. The utmost he would do would be to demand
a duel; and I'm sure he's heartily sick of that work. Besides, he and
Countess Anna have quarrelled. Meet me;--by the way, you and I mustn't
be seen meeting, I suppose. The duchess is neutral ground. Come here
to-night. And don't talk of me, but say that a friend asks how she is,
and hopes--the best things you can say for me. I must go up to their
confounded chatter again. Tell her there's no fear, none whatever.
You all hate us, naturally; but you know that Austrian officers are
gentlemen. Don't speak my name to her just yet. Unless, of course, she
should happen to allude to me, which is unlikely. I had a dismal idea
that her husband was at Novara."

The tender-hearted duchess sent a message to Vittoria, bidding her not
to forget that she had promised her at Meran to 'love her always.'

"And tell her," she said to Merthyr, "that I do not think I shall
have my rooms open for the concert to-morrow night. I prefer to let
Antonio-Pericles go mad. She will not surely consider that she is bound
by her promise to him? He drags poor Irma from place to place to make
sure the miserable child is not plotting to destroy his concert, as that
man Sarpo did. Irma is half dead, and hasn't the courage to offend him.
She declares she depends upon him for her English reputation. She has
already caught a violent cold, and her sneezing is frightful. I have
never seen so abject a creature. I have no compassion at the sight of
her."

That night Merthyr heard from Wilfrid that a plot against Carlo Ammiani
did exist. He repeated things he had heard pass between Countess
d'Isorella and Irma in the chamber of Pericles before the late battle.
Modestly confessing that he was 'for some reasons' in high favour with
Countess Lena, he added that after a long struggle he had brought her
to confess that her sister had sworn to have Countess Alessandra Ammiani
begging at her feet.

By mutu