She had behaved badly in disobeying his mandate from Brescia.

Yes, but had he not been over-imperious?

True; still she should have remembered her promise in the Vicentino.

She did indeed; but how could she quit her wounded friend Merthyr?

Perhaps not:  then, why had she sent word to him from Milan that she would be at Pallanza?

This question knocked at a sealed chamber.  She was silent, and Carlo had to brood over something as well.  He gave her hints of his foolish pique, his wrath and bitter baffled desire for her when, coming to Pallanza, he came to an empty house.  But he could not help her to see, for he did not himself feel, that he had been spurred by silly passions, pique, and wrath, to plunge instantly into new political intrigue; and that some of his worst faults had become mixed up with his devotion to his country.  Had he taken Violetta for an ally in all purity of heart?  The kiss he had laid on the woman’s sweet lips had shaken his absolute belief in that.  He tried to set his brain travelling backward, in order to contemplate accurately the point of his original weakness.  It being almost too severe a task for any young head, Carlo deemed it sufficient that he should say—­and this he felt—­that he was unworthy of his beloved.

Could Vittoria listen to such stuff?  She might have kissed him to stop the flow of it, but kissings were rare between them; so rare, that when they had put mouth to mouth, a little quivering spire of flame, dim at the base, stood to mark the spot in their memories.  She moved her hand, as to throw aside such talk.  Unfretful in blood, chaste and keen, she at least knew the foolishness of the common form of lovers’ trifling when there is a burning love to keep under, and Carlo saw that she did, and adored her for this highest proof of the passion of her love.

“In three days you will be mine, if I do not hear from Milan? within five, if I do?” he said.

Vittoria gave him the whole beauty of her face a divine minute, and bowed it assenting.  Carlo then led her to his mother, before whom he embraced her for the comfort of his mother’s heart.  They decided that there should be no whisper of the marriage until the couple were one.  Vittoria obtained the countess’s permission to write for Merthyr to attend her at the altar.  She had seen Weisspriess fall in combat, and she had perfect faith in her lover’s right hand.

CHAPTER XXXIX

ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN

Captain Weisspriess replied to Carlo Ammiani promptly, naming Camerlata by Como, as the place where he would meet him.

He stated at the end of some temperate formal lines, that he had given Count Ammiani the preference over half-a-dozen competitors for the honour of measuring swords with him; but that his adversary must not expect him to be always ready to instruct the young gentlemen of the Lombardo-Venetian province in the arts of fence; and therefore he begged to observe, that his encounter with Count Ammiani would be the last occasion upon which he should hold himself bound to accept a challenge from Count Ammiani’s countrymen.