The story, as Vittoria knew it, had a different, though yet a dreadful, colour.

“I could have hanged Rinaldo,” Count Karl said further.  “I suppose the rascals feared I should use my right, and that is why they sent their mad baggage of a woman to spare any damage to the family pride.  If I had been a man to enjoy vengeance, the rope would have swung for him.  In spite of provocation, I shall simply shoot the other; I pledge my word to it.  They shall be paid in coin.  I demand no interest.”

Weisspriess prudently avoided her.  Wilfrid held aloof.  She sat in garden shade till the bugle sounded.  Tyrolese and Italian soldiers were gibing at her haggard companion when she entered the carriage.  Fronting this dumb creature once more, Vittoria thought of the story of the brothers.  She felt herself reading it from the very page.  The woman looked that evil star incarnate which Laura said they were born under.

This is in brief the story of the Guidascarpi.

They were the offspring of a Bolognese noble house, neither wealthy nor poor.  In her early womanhood, Clelia was left to the care of her brothers.  She declined the guardianship of Countess Ammiani because of her love for them; and the three, with their passion of hatred to the Austrians inherited from father and mother, schemed in concert to throw off the Austrian yoke.  Clelia had soft features of no great mark; by her colouring she was beautiful, being dark along the eyebrows, with dark eyes, and a surpassing richness of Venetian hair.  Bologna and Venice were married in her aspect.  Her brothers conceived her to possess such force of mind that they held no secrets from her.  They did not know that the heart of their sister was struggling with an image of Power when she uttered hatred of it.  She was in truth a woman of a soft heart, with a most impressionable imagination.

There were many suitors for the hand of Clelia Guidascarpi, though her dowry was not the portion of a fat estate.  Her old nurse counselled the brothers that they should consent to her taking a husband.  They fulfilled this duty as one that must be done, and she became sorrowfully the betrothed of a nobleman of Bologna; from which hour she had no cheerfulness.  The brothers quitted Bologna for Venice, where there was the bed of a conspiracy.  On their return they were shaken by rumours of their sister’s misconduct.  An Austrian name was allied to hers in busy mouths.  A lady, their distant relative, whose fame was light, had withdrawn her from the silent house, and made display of her.  Since she had seen more than an Italian girl should see, the brothers proposed to the nobleman her betrothed to break the treaty; but he was of a mind to hurry on the marriage, and recollecting now that she was but a woman, the brothers fixed a day for her espousals, tenderly, without reproach.  She had the choice of taking the vows or surrendering her hand.  Her old nurse prayed for the day of her espousals to come with a quicker step.