Barto Rizzo, after having evaded the polizia of the city during a three months’ steady chase, was effectually captured on the doorstep of Vittoria’s house in the Corso Francesco, by gendarmes whom Pericles had set on his track.  A day later Vittoria was stabbed at about the same hour, on the same spot.  A woman dealt the blow.  Vittoria was returning from an afternoon drive with Laura Piaveni and the children.  She saw a woman seated on the steps as beggarwomen sit, face in lap.  Anxious to shield her from the lacquey, she sent the two little ones up to her with small bits of money.  But, as the woman would not lift her head, she and Laura prepared to pass her, Laura coming last.  The blow, like all such unexpected incidents, had the effect of lightning on those present; the woman might have escaped, but after she had struck she sat down impassive as a cat by the hearth, with a round-eyed stare.

The news that Vittoria had been assassinated traversed the city.  Carlo was in Turin, Merthyr in Rome.  Pericles was one of the first who reached the house; he was coming out when Wilfrid and the Duchess of Graatli drove up; and he accused the Countess d’Isorella flatly of having instigated the murder.  He was frantic.  They supposed that she must have succumbed to the wound.  The duchess sent for Laura.  There was a press of carriages and soft-humming people in the street; many women and men sobbing.  Wilfrid had to wait an hour for the duchess, who brought comfort when she came.  Her first words were reassuring.  “Ah!” she said, “did I not do well to make you drive here with me instead of with Lena?  Those eyes of yours would be unpardonable to her.  Yes, indeed; though a corpse were lying in this house; but Countess Alessandra is safe.  I have seen her.  I have held her hand.”

Wilfrid kissed the duchess’s hand passionately.

What she had said of Lena was true:  Lena could only be generous upon the after-thought; and when the duchess drove Wilfrid back to her, he had to submit to hear scorn:  and indignation against all Italians, who were denounced as cut-throats, and worse and worse and worse, males and females alike.  This way grounded on her sympathy for Vittoria.  But Wilfrid now felt toward the Italians through his remembrance of that devoted soul’s love of them, and with one direct look he bade his betrothed good-bye, and they parted.

It was in the early days of March that Merthyr, then among the Republicans of Rome, heard from Laura Piaveni.  Two letters reached him, one telling of the attempted assassination, and a second explaining circumstances connected with it.  The first summoned him to Milan; the other left it to his option to make the journey.  He started, carrying kind messages from the Chief to Vittoria, and from Luciano Ramara the offer of a renewal of old friendship to Count Ammiani.  His political object was to persuade the Lombard youth to turn their whole strength upon Rome.  The desire of his heart was again to see her, who had been so nearly lost to all eyes for ever.