“No, no!” Lena insisted, in abhorrence of etiquette; but Wilfrid said pointedly that his sister’s feelings must be spared.  “Her husband is an animal:  he is a millionaire city-of-London merchant; conceive him!  He has drunk himself gouty on Port wine, and here he is for the grape-cure.”

“Ah! in that England of yours, women marry for wealth,” said Lena.

“Yes, in your Austria they have a better motive” he interpreted her sentiment.

“Say, in our Austria.”

“In our Austria, certainly.”

“And with our holy religion?”

“It is not yet mine.”

“It will be?” She put the question eagerly.

Wilfrid hesitated, and by his adept hesitation succeeded in throwing her off the jealous scent.

“Say that it will be, my Wilfrid!”

“You must give me time”

“This subject always makes you cold.”

“My own Lena!”

“Can I be, if we are doomed to be parted when we die?”

There is small space for compunction in a man’s heart when he is in Wilfrid’s state, burning with the revival of what seemed to him a superhuman attachment.  He had no design to break his acknowledged bondage to Countess Lena, and answered her tender speech almost as tenderly.

It never occurred to him, as he was walking down to Meran with Vittoria, that she could suppose him to be bartering to help rescue the life of a wretched man in return for soft confidential looks of entreaty; nor did he reflect, that when cast on him, they might mean no more than the wish to move him for a charitable purpose.  The completeness of her fascination was shown by his reading her entirely by his own emotions, so that a lowly-uttered word, or a wavering unwilling glance, made him think that she was subdued by the charm of the old days.

“Is it here?” she said, stopping under the first Italian name she saw in the arcade of shops.

“How on earth have you guessed it?” he asked, astonished.

She told him to wait at the end of the arcade, and passed in.  When she joined him again, she was downcast.  They went straight to Adela’s hotel, where the one thing which gave her animation was the hearing that Mr. Sedley had met an English doctor there, and had placed himself in his hands.  Adela dressed splendidly for her presentation to the duchess.  Having done so, she noticed Vittoria’s depressed countenance and difficult breathing.  She commanded her to see the doctor.  Vittoria consented, and made use of him.  She could tell Laura confidently at night that Wilfrid would not betray Angelo, though she had not spoken one direct word to him on the subject.