inexplicable feminine tenderness being upon her at the moment of their
meeting, she found herself on a sudden prompted to touch and probe and
brood voluptuously over an unfortunate lover's feelings, supposing that
they existed. For the glory of Rome was on him, and she was at the same
time angry with Carlo Ammiani. It was the form of passion her dedicated
widowhood could still be subject to in its youth; the sole one. By this
chance Merthyr learnt what nothing else would have told him.

Her tale of the attempted assassination was related with palpable
indifference. She stated the facts. "The woman seemed to gasp while she
had her hand up; she struck with no force; and she has since been
inanimate, I hear. The doctor says that a spasm of the heart seized her
when she was about to strike. It has been shaken--I am not sure that he
does not say displaced, or unseated--by some one of her black tempers.
She shot Rinaldo Guidascarpi dead. Perhaps it was that. I am informed
that she worshipped the poor boy, and has been like a trapped she-wolf
since she did it. In some way she associated our darling with Rinaldo's
death, like the brute she is. The ostensible ground for her futile bit
of devilishness was that she fancied Sandra to have betrayed Barto Rizzo,
her husband, into the hands of the polizia. He wrote to the Countess
Alessandra--such a letter!--a curiosity!--he must see her and cross-
examine her to satisfy himself that she was a true patriot, &c. You know
the style: we neither of us like it. Sandra was waiting to receive him
when they pounced on him by the door. Next day the woman struck at her.
Decidedly a handsome woman. She is the exact contrast to the Countess
Violetta in face, in everything. Heart-disease will certainly never
affect that pretty spy! But, mark," pursued Laura, warming, "when Carlo
arrived, tears, penitence, heaps of self-accusations: he had been unkind
to her even on Lake Orta, where they passed their golden month; he had
neglected her at Turin; he had spoken angry words in Milan; in fact, he