tter stated brief facts. "She was stabbed this
afternoon, at half-past two, on the steps of her house, by a woman
called the wife of Barto Rizzo. She caught her hands up under her throat
when she saw the dagger. Her right arm was penetrated just above the
wrist, and half-an-inch in the left breast, close to the centre bone.
She behaved firmly. The assassin only struck once. No visible danger;
but you should come, if you have no serious work."

"Happily," ran the subsequent letter, of two days' later date, "the
assassin was a woman, and one effort exhausts a woman; she struck
only once, and became idiotic. Sandra has no fever. She had her wits
ready--where were mine?--when she received the wound. While I had her in
my arms, she gave orders that the woman should be driven out of the city
in her carriage. The Greek, her mad musical adorer, accuses Countess
d'Isorella. Carlo has seen this person--returns convinced of her
innocence. That is not an accepted proof; but we have one. It seems that
Rizzo (Sandra was secret about it and about one or two other things)
sent to her commanding her to appoint an hour detestable style! I can
see it now; I fear these conspiracies no longer:--she did appoint an
hour; and was awaiting him when the gendarmes sprang on the man at her
door.

"He had evaded them several weeks, so we are to fancy that his wife
charged Countess Alessandra with the betrayal. This appears a reasonable
and simple way of accounting for the deed. So I only partly give credit
to it. But it may be true.

"The wound has not produced a shock to her system--very, very
fortunately. On the whole, a better thing could not have happened.
Should I be more explicit? Yes, to you; for you are not of those who see
too much in what is barely said. The wound, then, my dear good friend,
has healed another wound, of which I knew nothing. Bergamasc and
Brescian friends of her husband's, have imagined that she interrupted or
diverted his studies. He also discovered that she had an opinion of her
own, and sometimes he consulted it; but alas! they are lovers, and he
knew not when love listened, or she when love spoke; and there was grave
business to be done meanwhile. Can you kindly allow that the case was
open to a little confusion? I know that you will. He had to hear many
violent reproaches from his fellow-students. These have ceased. I send
this letter on the chance of the first being lost on the road; and it
will supplement the fi