“Forgive me, and do not ask to see me until we have passed the fifteenth of the month.  You will see me that night at La Scala.  I wish to embrace you, but I am miserable to think of your being in Milan.  I cannot yet tell you where my residence is.  I have not met your brother.  If he writes to me it will make me happy, but I refuse to see him.  I will explain to him why.  Let him not try to see me.  Let him send by this messenger.  I hope he will contrive to be out of Milan all this month.  Pray let me influence you to go for a time.  I write coldly; I am tired, and forget my English.  I do not forget my friends.  I have you close against my heart.  If it were prudent, and it involved me alone, I would come to you without a moment’s loss of time.  Do know that I am not changed, and am your affectionate

“Emilia.”

When Barto Rizzo had finished reading, he went from the chamber and blew his voice into what Luigi supposed to be a hollow tube.

“This letter,” he said, coming back, “is a repetition of the Signorina Vittoria’s warning to her friends on the Motterone.  The English lady’s brother, who is in the Austrian service, was there, you say?”

Luigi considered that, having lately been believed in, he could not afford to look untruthful, and replied with a sprightly “Assuredly.”

“He was there, and he read the writing on the paper?”

“Assuredly:  right out loud, between puff-puff of his cigar.”

“His name is Lieutenant Pierson.  Did not Antonio-Pericles tell you his name?  He will write to her:  you will be the bearer of his letter to the signorina.  I must see her reply.  She is a good patriot; so am I; so are you.  Good patriots must be prudent.  I tell you, I must see her reply to this Lieutenant Pierson.”  Barto stuck his thumb and finger astride Luigi’s shoulder and began rocking him gently, with a horrible meditative expression.  “You will have to accomplish this, my Luigi.  All fair excuses will be made, if you fail generally.  This you must do.  Keep upright while I am speaking to you!  The excuses will be made; but I, not you, must make them:  bear that in mind.  Is there any person whom you, my Luigi, like best in the world?”

It was a winning question, and though Luigi was not the dupe of its insinuating gentleness, he answered, “The little girl who carries flowers every morning to the caffe La Scala.”

“Ah! the little girl who carries flowers every morning to the caffe La Scala.  Now, my Luigi, you may fail me, and I may pardon you.  Listen attentively:  if you are false; if you are guilty of one piece of treachery:—­do you see?  You can’t help slipping, but you can help jumping.  Restrain yourself from jumping, that’s all.  If you are guilty of treachery, hurry at once, straight off, to the little girl who carries flowers every morning to the caffe La Scala.  Go to her, take her by the two cheeks, kiss her, say to her ‘addio, addio,’ for, by the thunder of heaven! you will never see her more.”