The Austrian government had an eye on him, but he had inherited his father’s prudence, though he used it for nobler ends, and his discretion enabled him to do far more for the cause than a dozen enthusiasts could have accomplished.  No one understood this better than Donna Candida.  She had a share of his caution, and he trusted her with secrets which he would not have confided to many men.  Her drawing-room was the centre of the Piedmontese party, yet so clever was she in averting suspicion that more than one hunted conspirator hid in her house, and was helped across the Alps by her agents.

Briga relied on her as he did on no one else; but he did not love her, and she knew it.  Still, she was young, she was handsome, and he loved no one else:  how could she give up hoping?  From her intimate friends she made no secret of her feelings:  Italian women are not reticent in such matters, and Donna Candida was proud of loving a hero.  You will see at once that I had no chance; but if she could not give up hope, neither could I. Perhaps in her desire to secure my services for the cause she may have shown herself overkind; or perhaps I was still young enough to set down to my own charms a success due to quite different causes.  At any rate, I persuaded myself that if I could manage to do something conspicuous for Italy I might yet make her care for me.  With such an incentive you will not wonder that I worked hard; but though Donna Candida was full of gratitude she continued to adore my rival.

One day we had a hot scene.  I began, I believe, by reproaching her with having led me on; and when she defended herself, I retaliated by taunting her with Briga’s indifference.  She grew pale at that, and said it was enough to love a hero, even without hope of return; and as she said it she herself looked so heroic, so radiant, so unattainably the woman I wanted, that a sneer may have escaped me:—­was she so sure then that Briga was a hero?  I remember her proud silence and our wretched parting.  I went away feeling that at last I had really lost her; and the thought made me savage and vindictive.

Soon after, as it happened, came the Five Days, and Milan was free.  I caught a distant glimpse of Donna Candida in the hospital to which I was carried after the fight; but my wound was a slight one and in twenty-four hours I was about again on crutches.  I hoped she might send for me, but she did not, and I was too sulky to make the first advance.  A day or two later I heard there had been a commotion in Modena, and not being in fighting trim I got leave to go over there with one or two men whom the Modenese liberals had called in to help them.  When we arrived the precious Duke had been swept out and a provisional government set up.  One of my companions, who was a Modenese, was made a member, and knowing that I wanted something to do, he commissioned me to look up some papers in the ducal archives.  It was fascinating work, for in the pursuit of my documents I uncovered the hidden springs of his late Highness’s paternal administration.  The principal papers relative to the civil and criminal administration of Modena have since been published, and the world knows how that estimable sovereign cared for the material and spiritual welfare of his subjects.