“Hear me speak,” Rinaldo stopped his ravings.  “I will tell you what my position is.  A second attempt has been made to help Count Ammiani’s escape; it has failed.  He is detained a prisoner by the Government under the pretence that he is implicated in the slaying of an Austrian noble by the hands of two brothers, one of whom slew him justly—­not as a dog is slain, but according to every honourable stipulation of the code.  I was the witness of the deed.  It is for me that my cousin, Count Ammiani, droops in prison when he should be with his bride.  Let me speak on, I pray you.  I have said that I stand between two lovers.  I can release him, I know well, by giving myself up to the Government.  Unless I do so instantly, he will be removed from Milan to one of their fortresses in the interior, and there he may cry to the walls and iron-bars for his trial.  They are aware that he is dear to Milan, and these two miserable attempts have furnished them with their excuse.  Barto Rizzo bids me wait.  I have waited:  I can wait no longer.  The lamp is withheld from me to stop my writing to my brother, that I may warn him of my design, but the letter is written; the messenger is on his way to Lugano.  I do not state my intentions before I have taken measures to accomplish them.  I am as much Barto Rizzo’s prisoner now as you are.”

The plague of darkness and thirst for daylight prevented Wilfrid from having any other sentiment than gladness that a companion equally unfortunate with himself was here, and equally desirous to go forth.  When Barto’s wife brought their meal, and the lamp to light them eating it, Rinaldo handed her pen, ink, pencil, paper, all the material of correspondence; upon which, as one who had received a stipulated exchange, she let the lamp remain.  While the new and thrice-dear rays were illumining her dark-coloured solid beauty, I know not what touch of man-like envy or hurt vanity led Wilfrid to observe that the woman’s eyes dwelt with a singular fulness and softness on Rinaldo.  It was fulness and softness void of fire, a true ox-eyed gaze, but human in the fall of the eyelids; almost such as an early poet of the brush gave to the Virgin carrying her Child, to become an everlasting reduplicated image of a mother’s strong beneficence of love.  He called Rinaldo’s attention to it when the woman had gone.  Rinaldo understood his meaning at once.

“It will have to be so, I fear,” he said; “I have thought of it.  But if I lead her to disobey Barto, there is little hope for the poor soul.”  He rose up straight, like one who would utter grace for meat.  “Must we, O my God, give a sacrifice at every step?”

With that he resumed his seat stiffly, and bent and murmured to himself.  Wilfrid had at one time of his life imagined that he was marked by a peculiar distinction from the common herd; but contact with this young man taught him to feel his fellowship to the world at large, and to rejoice at it, though it partially humbled him.