such fidelity, and smiling slightly. "There has been no mention of the
king. Countess d'Isorella is a spy and a tool of the Jesuits, taking pay
from all parties--Austria as well, I would swear. Their object is to
paralyze the march on Rome, and she has won Carlo for them. I am told
that Barto Rizzo is another of her conquests. Thus she has a madman and
a fool, and what may not be done with a madman and a fool? However, I
have set a watch on her. She must have inflamed Carlo's vanity. He has
it, just as they all have. There's trickery: I would rather behold the
boy charging at the head of a column than putting faith in this base
creature. She must have simulated well," Laura went on talking to
herself.

"What trickery?" said Vittoria.

"He was in love with the woman when he was a lad," Laura replied, and
pertinently to Vittoria's feelings. This threw the moist shade across
her features.

Beppo in Turin and Luigi on the lake were the watch set on Countess
d'Isorella; they were useless except to fortify Laura's suspicions. The
Duchess of Graatli wrote mere gossip from Milan. She mentioned that Anna
of Lenkenstein had visited with her the tomb of her brother Count Paul at
Bologna, and had returned in double mourning; and that Madame Sedley--
"the sister of our poor ruined Pierson"--had obtained grace, for herself
at least, from Anna, by casting herself at Anna's feet,--and that they
were now friends.

Vittoria felt ashamed of Adela.

When Carlo returned, the signora attacked him boldly with all her