‘We have the people behind us.’

There was a fiercer tempest in the body of the house, and, on a sudden, silence.  Men who had invaded the stage joined the Italian guard surrounding Vittoria, telling that the lights had been extinguished; and then came the muffled uproar of universal confusion.  Some were for handing her down into the orchestra, and getting her out through the general vomitorium, but Carlo and Luciano held her firmly by them.  The theatre was a rageing darkness; and there was barely a light on the stage.  ‘Santa Maria!’ cried Giacinta, ’how dreadful that steel does look in the dark!  I wish our sweet boys would cry louder.’  Her mistress, almost laughing, bade her keep close, and be still.  ’Oh! this must be like being at sea,’ the poor creature whined, stopping her ears and shutting her eyes.  Vittoria was in a thick gathering of her defenders; she could just hear that a parley was going on between Luciano and the Austrians.  Luciano made his way back to her.  ‘Quick!’ he said; ’nothing cows a mob like darkness.  One of these officers tells me he knows you, and gives his word of honour—­he’s an Englishman—­to conduct you out:  come.’

Vittoria placed her hands in Carlo’s one instant.  Luciano cleared a space for them.  She heard a low English voice.

’You do not recognize me?  There is no time to lose.  You had another name once, and I have had the honour to call you by it.’

‘Are you an Austrian?’ she exclaimed, and Carlo felt that she was shrinking back.

’I am the Wilfrid Pole whom you knew.  You are entrusted to my charge; I have sworn to conduct you to the doors in safety, whatever it may cost me.’

Vittoria looked at him mournfully.  Her eyes filled with tears.  ’The night is spoiled for me!’ she murmured.

‘Emilia!’

‘That is not my name.’

’I know you by no other.  Have mercy on me.  I would do anything in the world to serve you.’

Major de Pyrmont came up to him and touched his arm.  He said briefly:  ’We shall have a collision, to a certainty, unless the people hear from one of her set that she is out of the house.’

Wilfrid requested her to confide her hand to him.

‘My hand is engaged,’ she said.

Bowing ceremoniously, Wilfrid passed on, and Vittoria, with Carlo and Luciano and her maid Giacinta, followed between files of bayonets through the dusky passages, and downstairs into the night air.

Vittoria spoke in Carlo’s ear:  ’I have been unkind to him.  I had a great affection for him in England.’

‘Thank him; thank him,’ said Carlo.

She quitted her lover’s side and went up to Wilfrid with a shyly extended hand.  A carriage was drawn up by the kerbstone; the doors of it were open.  She had barely made a word intelligible; when Major de Pyrmont pointed to some officers approaching.  ’Get her out of the way while there’s time,’ he said in French to Luciano.  ’This is her carriage.  Swiftly, gentlemen, or she’s lost.’