like Antaeus with redoubled strength from contact with the beloved soil, for each fall plunged us farther into the masses of the people, into closer knowledge of them and kinder depths of their affection, and so, learning their capabilities and the warmth of their hearts and the strength of their endurance, we became convinced that freedom was yet to be theirs.  Meanwhile, you know, our operations were shrouded in inscrutable secrecy; the French held Rome in frowning terror and subjection; the Pope trembled on his chair, and clutched it more franticly with his weak fingers:  it was not even known that we, the leaders, were now in the city; all supposed us to be awaiting quietly the turn of events, in some other land.  As if we ourselves were not events, and Italy did not hang on our motions!  But, as I said, all this time we were at work; our emissaries gave us enough to do:  we knew what spoil the robbers in the March had made, the decree issued in Vienna, the order of the day in Paris, the last word exchanged between the Cardinals, what whispers were sibilant in the Vatican; we mined deeper every day, and longed for the electric stroke which should kindle the spark and send princes and principalities shivered widely into atoms.  But, friend, this was not to be.  We knew one thing more, too:  we knew at last that we also were watched,—­when men sang our songs in the echoing streets at night, and when each of us, and I, chief of all, renewed our ancient fame, and became the word in every one’s mouth, so that old men blessed us in the way as we passed, wrapt, we had thought, in safe disguise, and crowds applauded.  Thus again we changed our habits, our rendezvous, our quarters, and again we eluded suspicion.

There came breathing-space.  I went to her to enjoy it, as I would have gone with some intoxicating blossom to share with her its perfume,—­with any band of wandering harpers, that together our ears might be delighted.  I went as when, utterly weary, I had always gone and rested awhile with her I loved in the sweet old palace-garden:  I had my ways, undreamed of by army or police or populace.  There had I lingered, soothed at noon by the hum of the bee, at night by that spirit that scatters the dew, by the tranquillity and charm of the place, ever rested by her presence, the repose of her manner, the curve of her dropping eyelid, so that looking on her face alone gave me pleasant dreams.

Now, as I entered, she threw down her work,—­some handkerchief for her shoulders, perhaps, or yet a banner for those unrisen men of Rome, I said,—­a white silk square on which she had wrought a hand with a gleaming sickle, reversed by tall wheat whose barbed grains bent full and ripe to the reaper, and round the margin, half-pictured, wound the wild hedge-roses of Paestum.  She threw it down and came toward me in haste, and drew me through an inner apartment.

“He has returned, they say,” she said presently,—­mentioning the Neapolitan,—­“and it would be unfortunate, if you met.”