Van seco pur anco

Sdegno ed Amor, quasi due Veltri al fianco.

“Ger. Lib.” cant. xx. cxvii.

(There went with him still Disdain and Love, like two greyhounds side by side.)

Glyndon did not perceive, as he hurried from the house, two forms crouching by the angle of the wall. He saw still the spectre gliding by his side; but he beheld not the yet more poisonous eyes of human envy and woman’s jealousy that glared on his retreating footsteps.

Nicot advanced to the house; Fillide followed him in silence. The painter, an old sans-culotte, knew well what language to assume to the porter. He beckoned the latter from his lodge, “How is this, citizen? Thou harbourest a ‘suspect.’”

“Citizen, you terrify me!— if so, name him.”

“It is not a man; a refugee, an Italian woman, lodges here.”

“Yes, au troisieme,— the door to the left. But what of her?— she cannot be dangerous, poor child!”

“Citizen, beware! Dost thou dare to pity her?”

“I? No, no, indeed. But —”

“Speak the truth! Who visits her?”

“No one but an Englishman.”

“That is it,— an Englishman, a spy of Pitt and Coburg.”

“Just Heaven! is it possible?”

“How, citizen! dost thou speak of Heaven? Thou must be an aristocrat!”

“No, indeed; it was but an old bad habit, and escaped me unawares.”

“How often does the Englishman visit her?”

“Daily.”

Fillide uttered an exclamation.

“She never stirs out,” said the porter. “Her sole occupations are in work, and care of her infant.”

“Her infant!”

Fillide made a bound forward. Nicot in vain endeavoured to arrest her. She sprang up the stairs; she paused not till she was before the door indic............