“Now to-morrow is an hour—­a laugh!  But if I’ve not been shot from a true bow—­if I’ve been a sham for two years—­if my name, and nature, bones, brains, were all false things hunting a shadow, Countess Alessandra, see the misery of Barto Rizzo!  Look at those two years, and say that I had my head.  Answer me, as you love your husband:  are you heart and soul with him in the fresh fight for Lombardy?” He said this with a look penetrating and malignant, and then by a sudden flash pitifully entreating.

Carlo feared to provoke, revolted from the thought of slaying him.  “Yes, yes,” he interposed, “my wife is heart and soul in it.  Go.”

Barto looked from him to her with the eyes of a dog that awaits an order.

Victoria gathered her strength, and said:  “I am not.”

“It is her answer!” Barto roared, and from deep dejection his whole countenance radiated.  “She says it—­she might give the lie to a saint!  I was never mad.  I saw the spot, and put my finger on it, and not a madman can do that.  My two years are my own.  Mad now, for, see!

“I worship the creature.  She is not heart and soul in it.  She is not in it at all.  She is a little woman, a lovely thing, a toy, a cantatrice.  Joy to the big heart of Barto Rizzo!  I am for Brescia!”

He flung his arm like a banner, and ran out.

Carlo laid his sword on a table.  Vittoria’s head was on his mother’s bosom.

The hour was too full of imminent grief for either of the three to regard this scene as other than a gross intrusion ended.

“Why did you deny my words?” Carlo said coldly.

“I could not lie to make him wretched,” she replied in a low murmur.

“Do you know what that ‘I am for Brescia’ means?  He goes to stir the city before a soul is ready.”

“I warned you that I should speak the truth of myself to-night, dearest.”

“You should discern between speaking truth to a madman, and to a man.”

Vittoria did not lift her eyes, and Carlo beckoned to Violetta, with whom he left the room.

“He is angry,” Countess Ammiani murmured.  “My child, you cannot deal with men in a fever unless you learn to dissemble; and there is exemption for doing it, both in plain sense, and in our religion.  If I could arrest him, I would speak boldly.  It is, alas! vain to dream of that; and it is therefore an unkindness to cause him irritation.  Carlo has given way to you by allowing you to be here when his friends assemble.  He knows your intention to speak.  He has done more than would have been permitted by my husband to me, though I too was well-beloved.”

Vittoria continued silent that her head might be cherished where it lay.  She was roused from a stupor by hearing new voices.  Laura’s lips came pressing to her cheek.  Colonel Corte, Agostino, Marco Sana, and Angelo Guidascarpi, saluted her.  Angelo she kissed.