e king!"

That set him thinking moodily over the things she had uttered of
Vittoria's strange and sudden devotion to the king.

Rainy dawn and the tongues of the churches ushered in the last day of
street fighting. Ammiani found Romara and Colonel Corte at the head of
strong bodies of volunteers, well-armed, ready to march for the Porta
'rosa. All three went straight to the house where the Provisional
Government sat, and sword in hand denounced Count Medole as a traitor
who sold his country to the king. Corte dragged him to the window to
hear the shouts for the Republic. Medole wrote their names down one by
one, and said, "Shall I leave the date vacant?" They put themselves
at the head of their men, and marched in the ringing of the bells. The
bells were their sacro-military music. Barto Rizzo was off to make a
spring at the Porta Ticinese. Students, peasants, noble youths of the
best blood, old men and young women, stood ranged in the drenching rain,
eager to face death for freedom. At mid-day the bells were answered by
cannon and the blunt snap of musketry volleys; dull, savage responses,
as of a wounded great beast giving short howls and snarls by the
interminable over-roaring of a cataract. Messengers from the gates came
running to the quiet centre of the city, where cool men discoursed and
plotted. Great news, big lies, were shouted:--Carlo Alberto thundered
in the plains; the Austrians were everywhere retiring; the Marshal was
a prisoner; the flag of surrender was on the citadel! These things were
for the ears of thirsty women, diplomatists, and cripples.

Countess Ammiani and Countess d'Isorella sat together throughout the
agitation of the day.

The life prayed for by one seemed a wisp of straw flung on this humming
furnace.

Countess Ammiani was too well used to defeat to believe readily in
victory, and had shrouded her head in resignation too long to hope for
what she craved. Her hands were joined softly in her lap. Her visage had
the same unmoved expression when she conversed with Violetta as when she
listened to the ravings of the Corso.

Darkness came, and the bells ceased not rolling by her open windows: the
clouds were like mists of conflagration.

She would not have the windows closed. The noise of the city had become
familiar and akin to the image of her boy. She sat there cloaked.

Her heart went like a time-piece to the two interrogations to heaven:
"Alive?--or dead?"

The voice of Luciano R