scheme to subdue Countess Anna:--"We Austrians also can be jealous. The
difference between us is, that it makes us tender, and you Italians
savage." She asked pointedly for an affirmative, that Vittoria was glad
to reply with, when she said: "Captain Weisspriess was perfectly
respectful to you?" She spoke comforting words of Carlo Ammiani, whom
she hoped to see released as soon as the excitement had subsided. The
chief comfort she gave was by saying that he had been originally arrested
in mistake for his cousin Angelo.

"I will confide what is now my difficulty here frankly to you," said the
duchess. "The Lenkensteins are my guests; I thought it better to bring
them here. Angelo Guidascarpi has slain their brother--a base deed!
It does not affect you in my eyes; you can understand that in theirs it
does. Your being present--Laura has told me everything--at the duel,
or fight, between that young man and Captain Weisspriess, will make you
appear as his accomplice--at least, to Anna it will; she is the most
unreasoning, the most implacable of women. She returned from the
Ultenthal last night, and goes there this morning, which is a sign that
Captain Weisspriess lives. I should be sorry if we lost so good an
officer. As she is going to take Father Bernardus with her, it is
possible that the wound is serious. Do you know you have mystified the
worthy man exceedingly? What tempted you to inform him that your
conscience was heavily burdened, at the same time that you refused to
confess?"

"Surely he has been deluded about me," said Vittoria.

"I do but tell you his state of mind in regard to you," the duchess
pursued. "Under all the circumstances, this is what I have to ask: you
are my Laura's guest, therefore the guest of my heart. There is another