Milan was more strictly guarded than when he had quitted it.  He had anticipated that it would be so, and tamed his spirit to submit to the slow stages of the carriage, spent a fiery night in Brescia, and entered the city of action on the noon of the fourteenth.  Safe within the walls, he thanked the English lady, assuring her that her charitable deed would be remembered aloft.  He then turned his steps in the direction of the Revolutionary post-office.  This place was nothing other than a blank abutment of a corner house that had long been undergoing repair, and had a great bank of brick and mortar rubbish at its base.  A stationary melonseller and some black fig and vegetable stalls occupied the triangular space fronting it.  The removal of a square piece of cement showed a recess, where, chiefly during the night, letters and proclamation papers were deposited, for the accredited postman to disperse them.  Hither, as one would go to a caffe for the news, Barto Rizzo came in the broad glare of noon, and flinging himself down like a tired man under the strip of shade, worked with a hand behind him, and drew out several folded scraps, of which one was addressed to him by his initials.  He opened it and read: 

’Your house is watched.

’A corporal of the P . . . ka regiment was seen leaving it this morning in time for the second bugle.

’Reply:—­where to meet.

’Spies are doubled, troops coming.

’The numbers in Verona; who heads them.

’Look to your wife.

‘Letters are called for every third hour.’

Barto sneered indolently at this fresh evidence of the small amount of intelligence which he could ever learn from others.  He threw his eyes all round the vacant space while pencilling in reply:—­

‘V. waits for M., but in a box’ (that is, Verona for Milan).

’We take the key to her.

’I have no wife, but a little pupil.

’A Lieutenant Pierson, of the dragoons; Czech white coats, helmets without plumes; an Englishman, nephew of General Pierson:  speaks crippled Italian; returns from V. to-day.  Keep eye on him;—­what house, what hour.’

Meditating awhile, Barto wrote out Vittoria’s name and enclosed it in a thick black ring.

Beneath it he wrote

’The same on all the play-bills.

’The Fifteenth is cancelled.

’We meet the day after.

‘At the house of Count M. to-night.’

He secreted this missive, and wrote Vittoria’s name on numbers of slips to divers addresses, heading them, ‘From the Pope’s Mouth,’ such being the title of the Revolutionary postoffice, to whatsoever spot it might in prudence shift.  The title was entirely complimentary to his Holiness.  Tangible freedom, as well as airy blessings, were at that time anticipated, and not without warrant, from the mouth of the successor of St. Peter.  From the Pope’s Mouth the clear voice of Italian liberty