sought my former duties. But how changed seemed all the world to me! what air I breathed! in what light I worked! Still I felt the thrilling pressure of those kisses on my lips, still those dear embraces!

So days passed on. I worked faithfully for the purpose to which I was so utterly committed, that, let that be lost and I was lost. We were victorious; after the banner fell in Lombardy to soar again in Venice and to sink, the Republic struggled to life; Rome rose once more on her seven hills, free and grand, child and mother of an idea, the idea of national unity, of independence and liberty from Tyrol to Sicily. My God! think of those dear people who for the first time said, "We have a country!"

abstraction. She is a beneficence, she is a shield, something for which to do and die, something for worship, ideal, grand; and though the sky is their only roof, the earth their only bed, affluent are they who have a land! Passion rooted deeply as the foundations of the hills: a man may adore one woman, but in adoring his land the aggregation of all men's love for all other women overwhelms him and accentuates to a fuller emotion. It is unselfish, impersonal, sheer sentiment clarified at its white heat from all interest and deceit; the noblest joy, the noblest sorrow. Bold should they be, and pure as the priests that bore the ark, who dare to call themselves patriots. And those, Leonore, who live to see their country's hopeless ruin, plunge into a sadness of heart that no Yet how could we have hoped then to other loss can equal, no remaining blessing continue? Such brief success dazzled us to mitigate-neither the devotion of a wife nor the the past. Piedmont had long since struck the perfection of a child. You have seen exiles key-note of Italy's fortunes. As Charles Albert from a lost land? Pride is dead in them, hope forsook Milan and suffered Austria once more is dead, ambition is dead, joy is dead. Tell me, to mouth the betrayed land and drip its blood would you choose me to suffer the personal from her heavy jaws, till in a baptism of redder loss of love and you, a loss I could hide in my dye he absolved himself from the sin-so woe aching soul, or to bear those black marks of heaped on woe, all came to crisis, ruin, and loss gall and melancholy which for ever overshadow-the Republic fell, Rome fell, the French enthem in widest grief and gloom?" tered.

She had sunk upon a seat, and was looking up at me with a pained unwavering glance, as if in my words she foresaw my fate.

"You are too intense!" she cried. "Your tones, your eyes, your gestures, make it an individual thing with you."

"And so it is!" I exclaimed. "I cannot sleep in peace, nor walk upon the ways, while these Austrian bayonets take my sunshine, these threatening, approaching French banners hide the fair light of heaven!"

"Come," she said, rising. "Speak no more. I am tired of the burden of the ditty, dear; and it may do you such injury yet that I already hate it. Come out again into our garden with me. Dismiss these cares, these burning pains and rankling wounds. Be soothed by the cool evening air, taste the gorgeous quiet of sunset, gather peace with the dew."

So we went. I trusted her the more that she differed from me, that then she promised to love Italy only because I loved it. I told her my secret schemes, I took her advice on points of my own responsibility: I learned the joy of help and confidence in one whom you deem devotedly true. Finally we remained without speech, stood long heart to heart while the night fell around us like a curtain; her eyes deepened from their azure noon splendour, and took the violet glooms of the hour, and a great planet rose and painted itself within them; again and again I printed my soul on her lips ere I left her.

At first, when I was sure that I was once more alone in the streets, I could not shake from myself the sense of her presence. I could not escape from my happiness, I was able to bring my thought to no other consideration. I reached home mechanically, slept an hour, performed the routine of bath and refreshment, and

Our names had become too famous, our heroic defence too familiar, for us to escape unknown: the Vascello had not been the only place where youth fought as the lioness fights for her whelps. Many of us died. Some fled. Others, and I among them, remained impenetrably concealed in the midst of our enemies, Weeks then dragged away, and months. New schemes chipped their shell. Again the central glory of the land might rise revealed to the nations. We never lost courage; after each downfal we rose like Antæus with redoubled strength from contact with the beloved soil, for each fall plunged us further into the masses of the people, into closer knowledge of them and kinder depths of their affection, and so, learning their capabili ties and the warmth of their hearts and the strength of their endurance, we became convinced that freedom was yet to be theirs. Meanwhile, you know, our operations were shrouded in inscrutable secrecy; the French held Rome in frowning terror and subjection; the Pope trembled on his chair, and clutched it more frantically with his weak fingers: it was not even known that we, the leaders, were now in the city; all supposed us to be waiting quietly the turn of events, in some other land. As if we ourselves were not events, and Italy did not hang on our motions! But, as I said, all this time we were at work; our emissaries gave us enough to do: we knew what spoil the robbers in the March had made, the decree issued in Vienna, the order of the day in Paris, the last word exchanged between the Cardinals, what whispers were sibilant in the Vatican; we mined deeper every day, and longed for the electric stroke which should kindle the spark and send princes and principalities shivered widely into atoms. But, friend, this was not to be. We knew one thing more, too; we knew at

sweet issimos! tender intonations! how deeply, how deeply ye lie in my soul! Let me repeat but one sentence: it was the key to my destiny.

"Yes, yes," she said, rising from my arms, "already I do you injury. You think oftener of me than of Italy."

It was true. I sprang to my feet and began pacing the floor, as I sought to recall any instance in which I had done less than I might for my country. The cool evening-breeze, and the bell-notes sinking through the air from distant old campaniles, soothed my tumult, and turning, I said:

"My devotion to you sanctifies my devotion to her. And not only for her own sake do I work, but that you, you, Lenore, may have a land where no one is your master, and where your soul may develope and become perfect." "And those who have not such object, why do they work?"

Then first I felt that I had fallen from the heights where my companions stood. This ardent patriotism of mine was sullied, a stain of selfishness rose and blotted out my glory: others should wear the conquering crowns of this grand civic game. Oh, friend! that was sad enough, but it was inevitable. Here is where the crime came in-that, knowing this, I still continued as their leader, suffered them to call me Master, and walked upon the palms they spread.

Leonore mistook my silence.

my failing heart, beats it while I speak. I would have carried a snake to the sacred ibis-nest and thenceforth hope was hollow as an egg. shell!

She ran from the room, but, pausing in the doorway, exclaimed:

"Remember, if you take me there, that I am no Roman patriot-I! I, who am of the House of Austria, that House that wears the crown of the Cæsars, those Cæsars who swayed the very imperial sceptre, who trailed the very imperial purple of old Rome! I endure the cause because it is yours. I beseech you to be faithful to it; because I should despise you, if for any woman you swerved from an object that had previously been with you holier than heaven!"

I stood there leaning from the lofty window, and looking down over the wide, solitary fields. Recollections crowded upon me; hopes rose before me. One day, that yet lives in my heart, Anselmo, sprang up afresh, a day forever domed in memory. Fair rose the sun that day, and I walked on the nation's errands through the streets of a distant town-a hoar and antique place, that sheltered me safely, so slight guard was it thought to need by our op pressors. It pleased that reverend arch-hypocrite to take at this hour his airing. Late events had given the people courage. It was a market-day; peasants from the country obstructed the ancient streets, the citizens were all abroad. Not few were the maledictions muttered over a column of French infantry that wound along as it returned to Rome from some movement of subjection; not low the curses showered on an officer who escorted ladies upon their drive. As I went, I considered what a day it would have been for émeute, and what mortal injury émeute would have done our cause. Italy, we said, like fools, but honest fools, must not be redeemed with blood. As if there were ever any sacred pact, any new order of things, that was not first sealed by blood! Therefore, when I, alone perhaps of all the throng, saw one mana man in whose soul I knew the iron rankledThis was too much to hear in silence-to hear of stealing behind the crowd, behind the monuthese faithful comrades, who had endured every-ments, and, as the coach of His Excellency thing, and were yet to overcome because they possessed their souls in patience, each of whom stood higher than I in unspotted public purity, and whose praise and love led me constantly to larger effort. At least I would make them the reparation of vindication.

"You cannot tell me why they work?" she said. "From habit, from fear, because committed? It cannot be, then, that they are in earnest, that they are sincere, that they care a rush for this cause so holy to you. They have entered into it, as all this common people do, for the love of a new excitement, for the pleasurable mystery of conspiracy, for the self-importance and gratulation. They will scatter at the signal of danger, like mischievous boys when a gendarme comes round the corner. They will betray you at the lifting of an Austrian finger. Leave them!"

"You mistrust them?" I exclaimed. "They whose souls have been tried in the furnace, who have the temper of fine steel, pliant as gold, but incorruptible as adamant-heroes and saints, they stand so low in your favour? Come, then, come with me now-for the bells have struck the hour and shadows clothe the earth-come to their conclave where discovery is death, and judge if they be idle prattlers, or men who carry their lives in their hands!"

Fool! Fool! Fool! Every sound in the air cries out that word to me: the bee that wings across the tower hums it in my ear; the booming alarm-bell rings it forth; my heart,

rolled luxuriously along, levelling a glittering barrel-it was but an instant's work to seize the advancing creatures, to hold them rearing and then a deadly flash-while the ball whistled past me, grazed my hand, and pierced the leader's heart. In a twinkling the dead horse was cut away, and His Excellency, cowering in the bottom of the coach, galloped home more swiftly than the wind, without a word. But the populace appreciated the action, took it up with vivas long and loud, that rang after me when I had slipped away, and before nightfall had echoed in all ears through leagues of country round. I went that night to the theatre. The house was filled, and, as we entered, a murmur went about, and then cries broke forth-the multitude rose with cheers and bravos, calling my name, intoxicated with enthusiasm, and dazzled, not by a daring feat, but by the spirit that prompted it. Women tore off

Do not think I surrendered then. Without a struggle I would be the prize of Pope nor King nor Kaiser! I shook the minions' grasp from my shoulder, I flashed my sword in their eyes; and not till the crescent of weapons encircled me in one blinding gleam, vain grew defence, vain honour, vain bravery. Of what use was my soul to me thenceforth? I became but carrion prey. I fell, and the world fell from me.

Sensation, emotion, awoke from their swooning lapse only in the light of day, the next or another, I knew not which. I was lifted from some conveyance, I saw blue reaches of curving bay and the great purifying priest of flame, and knew I was in the city guarded by its pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night. I had reason to know it, when, yet unfed, unrested, faint, smirched and smeared with blood and travel, loaded with chains, I was brought to a tribunal where sat the sleek and subtle tyrant of Naples. "Signor," said a bland voice from the king's

I was silent: not that I feared to say it; they could but finish their play.

Then I saw the beautifully cut lips of my judge part, that the voice might slide forth, and, taking a comfit, he uttered, with unchanging tint and sweetest tone, the three words, "Apply the question."

their jewels to twist them into a sling for my injured hand; men rose and made me a conqueror's ovation; the orchestra played the old Etrurian hymns of freedom; I was attended home with a more than Roman triumph of torch and song, stately men and beautiful women. But chameleons change their tint in the sunshine, and why should men always march under one colour? Friend, not six months later there came another day, when triumph was shame; plaudits, curses; joyous tumult, scorching silence. Oh! But I shall come to that in time. Now let me hasten; the hours are less tardy than I, and they bring with them my last thought of this day -sole pageant defiling through memory. I was startled again by the far, sweet sound of a bell, some bell ringing twilight out and evening in across the wide Campagna. I wondered what delayed Leonore. Did it take so long to toss off the cloudy back-falling veil, to wrap in any long cloak her gown of white damask and all the sheen of her milky pearl-side-and looking in its direction, I encountered clusters and fiery rubies? I thought with ex- the Neapolitan-"Signor, I lately said that at ultation then of what she was so soon to see- some day I would trouble you to repeat a of the route through sunken ruins, down wells brilliant sentence addressed to me. The day forsaken of their pristine sources and hidden by has arrived. I scarcely dared dream it would masses of moss, winding with the faint light in be so soon. Shall we listen?" our hands through the awful ways and avenues o the catacombs. The scene grew real to me, as I mused. Alone, what should I fear? These silent hosts encamped around would but have cheered their child. But with her, every murmur becomes a portent of danger, every current of air gives me fresh tremors; as we pass casual openings into the sky, the vault of air, the glint of stars, shall seem a malignant face; I fancy to hear impossible footsteps behind us; some bone that crumbling falls from its shelf makes my heart beat high, her dear hand trembles in my hold, and, full of a new and superstitious awe, I half fear this ancient population of the graves will rise and surround us with phantom array. Now and then, a cold, lonely wind, blowing from no one knows where, rises and careers past us, piercing to the marrow. I think, too, of that underground space, half choked with rubbish, into which we are to emerge at last, once the hall of some old Roman revel. I see the troubled flashes flung from the flaring torch over our assembly. Alert and startled, I see Lenore listen to the names as if they summoned the wraiths and not the bodies of men whom she had supposed to be lost in the pampas of Paraguay, dead in the Papal prisons, sheltered in English homes, or tossing far away on the long voyages of the Pacific seas. myself at length taking the torch from its niche and restoring it, as a hundred times before, to Pietro da Valumbo, while it glitters on some strange object looking in at the vine-clad open-eye, ing above, with its breaths of air, serpent or hare, or the large face and slow eyes of a browsing buffalo. And as I think, lo! an echo in the house, a dull tramp in the hall, a stealthy tread in the room, a heavy hand upon my shoulder-I was arrested for high treason.

Why should I endure that for a whim? Who courts torment? Already they drew near with the cunning instruments. Let me say it, and what then? Nothing worse than torture. Let me not say it, and certainly torture. Oh, I was weaker than a child! my body ruled my spirit with its exhaustion and pain. Yet there was a certain satisfaction in flinging the words in their faces. I waved back with my remaining arm the slaves who approached.

"You should allow a weary man the time to collect his thoughts," I said, and then turned to my persecutors. "I have spoken with you many times, Signor," I replied to the Neapolitan, "yet of all our words I can remember none but these, that you could care to hear with this auditory. I said that the tyrant of Naples | walks in blood to his knees!"

The Neapolitan smiled. The king rose.

"Well said!" he murmured, in his silvery tones. "One that knows so much must know I see more. Exhaust his knowledge, I pray. Do not spare your courtesies; remember he is my guest. I leave him in your hands."

He fixed me with his eye-that darkly-glazed devoid of life, of love, of joy, as if he were the thing of another element-then bowed and passed away.

"The urbanity of His Majesty is too well known to suppose it possible that he should prove you a liar," said the Neapolitan.

Truly, I was left in their hands! Shall I tell