I suppose?"

"Possibly a little before," said Ammiani, cooled by the false ring of
this kind of speech.

"It's useless to expect that your infernal bells will not burst out like
all the lunatics on earth?"

"Quite useless, I fear. Good-night."

Ammiani charged one of the men at an outer barricade to follow the white
umbrella and pass it on.

He returned to the Countess d'Isorella, who was awaiting him, and alone.

This glorious head had aroused his first boyish passion. Scandal was
busy concerning the two, when Violetta d'Asola, the youthfullest widow in
Lombardy and the loveliest woman, gave her hand to Count d'Isorella, who
took it without question of the boy Ammiani. Carlo's mother assisted in
that arrangement; a maternal plot, for which he could thank her only
after he had seen Vittoria, and then had heard the buzz of whispers at
Violetta's name. Countess d'Isorella proved her friendship to have
survived the old passion, by travelling expressly from Turin to obtain
leave to visit him in prison. It was a marvellous face to look upon
between prison walls. Rescued while the soldiers were marching him to
the citadel that day, he was called by pure duty to pay his respects to
the countess as soon as he had heard from his mother that she was in the
city. Nor was his mother sorry that he should go. She had patiently
submitted to the fact of his betrothal to Vittoria, which was his
safeguard in similar perils; and she rather hoped for Violetta to wean