“Beloved, I will open my mind to you,” said Vittoria.  “I am cowardly, and I thought I had such courage!  Tonight a poor mad creature has been here, who has oppressed me, I cannot say how long, with real fear—­that I only understand now that I know the little ground I had for it.  I am even pleased that one like Barto Rizzo should see me in a better light.  I find the thought smiling in my heart when every other thing is utterly dark there.  You have heard that Carlo goes to Brescia.  When I was married, I lost sight of Italy, and everything but happiness.  I suffer as I deserve for it now.  I could have turned my husband from this black path; I preferred to dream and sing.  I would not see—­it was my pride that would not let me see his error.  My cowardice would not let me wound him with a single suggestion.  You say that he is betrayed.  Then he is betrayed by the woman who has never been unintelligible to me.  We were in Turin surrounded by intrigues, and there I thanked her so much for leaving me the days with my husband by Lake Orta that I did not seek to open his eyes to her.  We came to Milan, and here I have been thanking her for the happy days in Turin.  Carlo is no longer to blame if he will not listen to me.  I have helped to teach him that I am no better than any of these Italian women whom he despises.  I spoke to him as his wife should do, at last.  He feigned to think me jealous, and I too remember the words of the reproach, as if they had a meaning.  Ah, my friend!  I would say of nothing that it is impossible, except this task of recovering lost ground with one who is young.  Experience of trouble has made me older than he.  When he accused me of jealousy, I could mention Countess d’Isorella’s name no more.  I confess to that.  Yet I knew my husband feigned.  I knew that he could not conceive the idea of jealousy existing in me, as little as I could imagine unfaithfulness in him.  But my lips would not take her name!  Wretched cowardice cannot go farther.  I spoke of Rome.  As often as I spoke, that name was enough to shake me off:  he had but to utter it, and I became dumb.  He did it to obtain peace; for no other cause.  So, by degrees, I have learnt the fatal truth.  He has trusted her, for she is very skilful; distrusting her, for she is treacherous.  He has, therefore, believed excessively in his ability to make use of her, and to counteract her baseness.  I saw his error from the first; and I went on dreaming and singing; and now this night has come!”

Vittoria shadowed her eyes.

“I will go to him at once,” said Merthyr.

“Yes; I am relieved.  Go, dear friend,” she sobbed; “you have given me tears, as I hoped.  You will not turn him; had it been possible, could I have kept you from him so long?  I know that you will not turn him from his purpose, for I know what a weight it is that presses him forward in that path.  Do not imagine our love to be broken.  He will convince you that it is not.  He has the nature of an angel.  He permitted me to speak before these men to-night—­feeble thing that I am!  It was a last effort.  I might as well have tried to push a rock.”