And while the Duchess read, the old man repeated tags and fragments under his breath, as he once more resumed the oars and drove the boat gently towards Menaggio.

“The multitude of victims has not robbed us of courage in the past, nor will it so rob us in the future—­till victory dawns.  The cause of the people is like the cause of religion—­it triumphs only through its martyrs....  You—­who survive—­will conquer, and in your victory we, the dead, shall live....

“Take no thought for us; the blood of the forerunners is like the seed which the wise husbandman scatters on the fertile ground.... Teach our young men how to adore and how to suffer for a great idea.  Work incessantly at that; so shall our country come to birth; and grieve not for us!...  Yes, Italy shall be one!  To that all things point. WORK! There is no obstacle that cannot be overcome, no opposition that cannot be destroyed.  The HOW and the WHEN only remain to be solved.  You, more fortunate than we, will find the clew to the riddle, when all things are accomplished, and the times are ripe....  Hope!—­my parents, and my brothers—­hope always!—­waste no time in weeping.”

The Duchess read aloud the Italian, and Julie stooped over her shoulder to follow the words.

“Marvellous!” said Julie, in a low voice, as she sank back into her place.  “A youth of twenty-seven, with the rope round his neck, and he comforts himself with ‘Italy.’  What’s ‘Italy’ to him, or he to ’Italy’?” Not even an immediate paradise.  “Is there anybody capable of it now?”

Her face and attitude had lost their languor.  As the Duchess returned his treasure to the old man she looked at Julie with joy.  Not since her illness had there been any such sign of warmth and energy.

And, indeed, as they floated on, past the glow of Bellaggio, towards the broad gold and azure of the farther lake, the world-defying passion that breathed from these words of dead and murdered Italians played as a bracing and renewing power on Julie’s still feeble being.  It was akin to the high snows on those far Alps that closed in the lake—­to the pure wind that blew from them—­to the “gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme,” amid which their little boat pressed on towards the shore.

“What matter,” cried the intelligence, but as though through sobs—­“what matter the individual struggle and misery?  These can be lived down.  The heart can be silenced—­nerves steadied—­strength restored.  Will and idea remain—­the eternal spectacle of the world, and the eternal thirst of man to see, to know, to feel, to realize himself, if not in one passion, then in another.  If not in love, then in patriotism—­art—­thought.”

* * * * *

The Duchess and Julie landed presently beneath the villa of which they were the passing tenants.  The Duchess mounted the double staircase where the banksia already hung in a golden curtain over the marble balustrade.  Her face was thoughtful.  She had to write her daily letter to the absent and reproachful Duke.