When Merthyr had spoken thus, she felt that she might dare to press his hand.  Sharing friendship with this steadfast nature and brotherly gentleman; who was in the ripe manhood of his years; who loved Italy and never despaired; who gave great affection, and took uncomplainingly the possible return for it;—­seemed like entering on a great plain open to boundless heaven.  She thought that friendship was sweeter than love.  Merthyr soon left the castle to meet his sister at Coire.  Laura and Vittoria drove some distance up the Vintschgau, on the way to the Engadine, with him.  He affected not to be downcast by the failure of the last attempt at a rising in Milan.  “Keep true to your Art; and don’t let it be subservient to anything,” he said, and his final injunction to her was that she should get a German master and practise rigidly.

Vittoria could only look at Laura in reply.

“He is for us, but not of us,” said Laura, as she kissed her fingers to him.

“If he had told me to weep and pray,” Vittoria murmured, “I think I should by-and-by lift up my head.”

“By-and-by!  By-and-by I think I see a convent for me,” said Laura.

Their faces drooped.

Vittoria cried:  “Ah! did he mean that my singing at La Scala was below the mark?”

At this, Laura’s laughter came out in a volume.  “And that excellent Father Bernardus thinks he is gaining a convert!” she said.

Vittoria’s depression was real, though her strong vitality appeared to mock it.  Letters from Milan, enclosed to the duchess, spoke of Carlo Ammiani’s imprisonment as a matter that might be indefinitely prolonged.  His mother had been subjected to an examination; she had not hesitated to confess that she had received her nephew in her house, but it could not be established against her that it was not Carlo whom she had passed off to the sbirri as her son.  Countess Ammiani wrote to Laura, telling her she scarcely hoped that Carlo would obtain his liberty save upon the arrest of Angelo:—­“Therefore, what I most desire, I dare not pray for!” That line of intense tragic grief haunted Vittoria like a veiled head thrusting itself across the sunlight.  Countess Ammiani added that she must give her son what news she could gather;—­“Concerning you,” said Laura, interpreting the sentence:  “Bitter days do this good, they make a proud woman abjure the traditions of her caste.”  A guarded answer was addressed, according to the countess’s directions, to Sarpo the bookseller, in Milan.  For purposes of such a nature, Barto Rizzo turned the uneasy craven to account.