The duchess did her utmost to induce her to see that he was a criminal, outlawed from common charity.  “These Italians are really like the Jews,” she said to Anna; “they appear to me to hold together by a bond of race:  you cannot get them to understand that any act can be infamous when one of their blood is guilty of it.”

Anna thought gloomily:  “Then, why do you ally yourself to them?”

The duchess, with Anna, Lena, and Wilfrid, drove to the Ultenthal.  Vittoria and Merthyr had a long afternoon of companionship.  She had been shyer in meeting him than in meeting Wilfrid, whom she had once loved.  The tie between herself and Wilfrid was broken; but Merthyr had remained true to his passionless affection, which ennobled him to her so that her heart fluttered, though she was heavily depressed.  He relieved her by letting her perceive that Carlo Ammiani’s merits were not unknown to him.  Merthyr smiled at Carlo for abjuring his patrician birth.  He said:  “Count Ammiani will be cured in time of those little roughnesses of his adopted Republicanism.  You must help to cure him.  Women are never so foolish as men in these things.”

When Merthyr had spoken thus, she felt that she might dare to press his hand.  Sharing friendship with this steadfast nature and brotherly gentleman; who was in the ripe manhood of his years; who loved Italy and never despaired; who gave great affection, and took uncomplainingly the possible return for it;—­seemed like entering on a great plain open to boundless heaven.  She thought that friendship was sweeter than love.  Merthyr soon left the castle to meet his sister at Coire.  Laura and Vittoria drove some distance up the Vintschgau, on the way to the Engadine, with him.  He affected not to be downcast by the failure of the last attempt at a rising in Milan.  “Keep true to your Art; and don’t let it be subservient to anything,” he said, and his final injunction to her was that she should get a German master and practise rigidly.

Vittoria could only look at Laura in reply.

“He is for us, but not of us,” said Laura, as she kissed her fingers to him.

“If he had told me to weep and pray,” Vittoria murmured, “I think I should by-and-by lift up my head.”

“By-and-by!  By-and-by I think I see a convent for me,” said Laura.

Their faces drooped.

Vittoria cried:  “Ah! did he mean that my singing at La Scala was below the mark?”

At this, Laura’s laughter came out in a volume.  “And that excellent Father Bernardus thinks he is gaining a convert!” she said.