To Odo the delay was still more welcome; for it gave him what he must needs regard as his last opportunity of being in the girl’s company.  She had accepted his companionship on the journey with a readiness in which he saw only the magnanimity of pardon; but in Geneva they must part, and what hope had he of seeing her again?  The first smart of vanity allayed, he was glad she chose to treat him as a friend.  It was in this character that he could best prove his disinterestedness, his resolve to make amends for the past; and in this character only—­as he now felt—­would it be possible for him to part from her.

On his second visit he ventured to discharge his mind of its heaviest burden by enquiring what had befallen her and her father after he had lost trace of them at Vercelli.  She told him quite simply that, failing to meet him at the appointed place, they at once guessed that his plan had been winded by the abate who travelled with him; and that after a few hours’ delay her father had succeeded in securing a chaise which had taken them safely across the border.  She went on to speak of the hardships they had suffered after reaching Milan.  Even under a comparatively liberal government it was small advantage to be marked by the Holy Office; and though he received much kindness, and even material aid, from those of his way of thinking, Vivaldi was unable to obtain the professorship he had hoped for.

From Milan they went to Pavia; but in this University, the most liberal in Italy, the chairs were so sought after that there was no hope of his receiving a charge worthy of his talents.  Here, however, his spirit breathed its natural air, and reluctant to lose the privileges of such intercourse he decided to accept the post of librarian to an eccentric nobleman of the town.  If his pay was modest his duties left him leisure for the work which was his chief concern; for his patron, who had houses in Milan and Brescia, came seldom to Pavia, and Fulvia and her father had the vast palace to themselves.  They lodged in a corner adjoining the library, spending their days in studious seclusion, their evenings in conversation with some of the first scholars of Europe:  the learned botanist Scopoli, Spallanzani, Volta, and Father Fontana, the famous mathematician.  In such surroundings Vivaldi might have pursued his task contentedly enough, but for the thought of Fulvia’s future.  This, his daughter said, continually preyed on him, driving him to labours beyond his strength; for he hoped by the publication of his book to make good, at least in part, the loss of the small property which the Sardinian government had confiscated.  All her entreaties could not dissuade him from over-exertion; and in addition to his regular duties he took on himself (as she afterward learned) the tedious work of revising proofs and copying manuscripts for the professors.  This drudgery, combined with severe intellectual effort, exceeded his flagging powers; and the book was hardly completed when his patron, apprised of its contents, abruptly removed him from his post.  From that day Vivaldi sank in health; but he ended as became a sage, content to have discharged the task for which he had given up home and substance, and dying with the great Stoic’s words upon his lips:—­