’There is the dawn, signorina!

Vittoria frightened him by taking a seat upon a bench of rock; while it was still dark about them, she drew off Camilla’s silken shoes and stockings, and stood on bare feet.

‘You fancied I was tired,’ she said.  ’No, I am thrifty; and I want to save as much of my finery as I can.  I can go very well on naked feet.  These shoes are no protection; they would be worn out in half-a-day, and spoilt for decent wearing in another hour.’

The sight of fair feet upon hard earth troubled Angelo; he excused himself for calling her out to endure hardship; but she said, ’I trust you entirely.’  She looked up at the first thin wave of colour while walking.

‘You do not know me,’ said he.

‘You are the Countess Ammiani’s nephew.’

’I have, as I had the honour to tell you yesterday, the blood of your lover in my veins.’

‘Do not speak of him now, I pray,’ said Vittoria; ’I want my strength!

’Signorina, the man we have left behind us is his enemy;—­mine.  I would rather see you dead than alive in his hands.  Do you fear death?’

‘Sometimes; when I am half awake,’ she confessed.  ’I dislike thinking of it.’

He asked her curiously:  ‘Have you never seen it?’

‘Death?’ said she, and changed a shudder to a smile; ‘I died last night.’

Angelo smiled with her.  ’I saw you die!

‘It seems a hundred years ago.’

‘Or half-a-dozen minutes.  The heart counts everything’

‘Was I very much liked by the people, Signor Angelo?’

‘They love you.’

‘I have done them no good.’

‘Every possible good.  And now, mine is the duty to protect you.’

’And yesterday we were strangers!  Signor Angelo, you spoke of sbirri.  There is no rising in Bologna.  Why are they after you?  You look too gentle to give them cause.’

’Do I look gentle?  But what I carry is no burden.  Who that saw you last night would know you for Camilla?  You will hear of my deeds, and judge.  We shall soon have men upon the road; you must be hidden.  See, there:  there are our colours in the sky.  Austria cannot wipe them out.  Since I was a boy I have always slept in a bed facing East, to keep that truth before my eyes.  Black and yellow drop to the earth:  green, white, and red mount to heaven.  If more of my countrymen saw these meanings!—­but they are learning to.  My tutor called them Germanisms.  If so, I have stolen a jewel from my enemy.’

Vittoria mentioned the Chief.

‘Yes,’ said Angelo; ’he has taught us to read God’s handwriting.  I revere him.  It’s odd; I always fancy I hear his voice from a dungeon, and seeing him looking at one light.  He has a fault:  he does not comprehend the feelings of a nobleman.  Do you think he has made a convert of our Carlo in that?  Never!  High blood is ineradicable.’