"Oh, he was telling us some odd story about the time--yes, I think it
was about Vannina d'Ornano."

"I suppose, mademoiselle, that Vannina's death has not inspired you with
any great love for our national hero, the brave Sampiero?"

"But do you think his conduct was so very heroic?"

"The excuse for his crime lies in the savage customs of the period. And
then Sampiero was waging deadly war against the Genoese. What confidence
could his fellow-countrymen have felt in him if he had not punished his
wife, who tried to treat with Genoa?"

"Vannina," said the sailor, "had started off without her husband's
leave. Sampiero did quite right to wring her neck!"

"But," said Miss Lydia, "it was to save her husband, it was out of love
for him, that she was going to ask his pardon from the Genoese."

"To ask his pardon was to degrade him!" exclaimed Orso.

"And then to kill her himself!" said Miss Lydia. "What a monster he must
have been!"

"You know she begged as a favour that she might die by his hand. What
about Othello, mademoiselle, do you look on him, too, as a monster?"

"There is a difference; he was jealous. Sampiero was only vain!"

"And after all is not jealousy a kind of vanity? It is the vanity of