terrific hurricane. Then the thunder came up
in heavy peals, the lightning burst over the
plain in rapid flashes, and the wind tore up the
vines by the roots and whirled them wildly away,
with all their vintage promise, towards the sea.
Yet still, urged forward by that fierce thirst which
blood alone could slake, with murder in his
heart and madness in his brain, William
Trefalden ran — fell — struggled to his feet—staggered
on again—fell again — and so for miles and miles!

Next morning early, when the storm-clouds
were drifting off raggedly towards the west with
now and then a gleam of uncertain sunshine
between, a party of peasant folk coming up from
the way of Medoc found the body of a man lying
face downwards in a pool by the roadside. His
clothes, face, and hands were torn and
bloodstained. He had a watch upon his person, and
in his waistcoat-pocket a porte-monnaie full of
bank-notes and napoleons. No letter, no card,
no token by which it might be possible to identify
him, could be discovered upon the body. His
very linen was unmarked.

The honest country-folk laid this nameless
corpse across one of their mules, and brought it
charitably into the dead-house at Bordeaux.
Having lain there unclaimed for forty-eight
hours, it was buried in the new cemetery beyond
the walls, with a small black cross at the head
of the grave, on which the only inscription was a
row of numerals. His watch, his money, and his
clothes were awarded by the préfet to the poor of
the parish in which the body was found.

EPILOGUE.

THE world knows the Italian story by heart.
How Garibaldi entered Naples; how, at Della
Catena, he saluted Victor-Emmanuel as King of
Italy; how he sheathed his sword when the great
work was so far done, and went back to his
solitude at Caprera, are facts which need no
recapitulation. Had one man lived but a few
months—nay, a few weeks—longer, the tale
might perchance have ended differently. Where
we now read Florence we might have read Rome;
for "Regno d'ltalia" on printed stamp and
minted coin, a word of broader significance and
more antique glory. But the ideal Republic
died with Giulio Colonna, and was buried in his
grave.

In the mean while, Olimpia's life became a
blank. Her father had been the very light of
her inner world. Bred in his political faith,
trained in his employ, accustomed to look up to
him, to work with him, to share his most secret
councils, his wildest hopes, his fears, his errors,
and even his personal dangers, she seemed to
lose the half of her own soul when he was
snatched from her. Then came the sudden
change of programme—a change to her so
bewildering, so unworthy, so fatal! Mistrusting
Sardinia, and scorning the very name of a
monarchical Italy, Olimpia conceived that her
father's memory was insulted in this compromise,
and so, in the bitterness of her resentment and
grief, withdrew herself altogether from the work
in which her life had been spent. Avoiding all
with whom she had laboured and acted in time
past, and keeping up no more than the merest
thread of intercourse with even those whom
she used to call her friends, she then made her
home at Chiswick, in the quiet house to which
Saxon had conducted her on the evening of their
arrival in London. Here she lived solitary and
apart, cherishing her sorrow, mourning the great
scheme unachieved, and learning that hard lesson
of patience which all enthusiasts have to learn in
this world sooner or later.

Not thus Lord Castletowers. Too English,
too unprejudiced, and it may be added too
sensible, to attach paramount importance to the
mere shibboleth of a party, he welcomed the
settlement of Italian affairs with a heartiness
that he would perhaps scarcely have ventured to
express very loudly in the presence of Colonna's
daughter. Where she refused to recognise any
vital difference between a monarchical government
and a pure despotism, he was far-sighted
enough to look forward to that free and
prosperous future which most thinking men now
prophesy for the kingdom of Italy, nor was he
slow to perceive that there might be hope for
himself in the turn that matters had taken. The
Italian question thus far solved, Italy would no
longer need so much support from her
well-wishers. With a liberal monarch at the head of
the nation, a parliament to vote supplies, and an
army to defend the national territory, the whole
system of patriotic black-mail levying must
necessarily collapse. Olimpia would therefore no
longer feel herself bound to sacrifice her hand to
"one who could do more for Italy" than himself.
So the Earl loved and hoped on, and wisely
bided his time.

Wisely, too, he applied himself in the mean
while to the improvement of his own worldly
position. Occupying his friend Saxon's vacant
chambers in St. James's-street, he devoted
himself to his parliamentary duties with a zeal that
drew upon him the attention of one or two very
noble and influential personages. Having made
a couple of really brilliant speeches during the
spring session of 1861, and happening to be upon
the spot when a man of ability and tact was
needed at a moment's notice, he had the good
fortune to be entrusted with a somewhat delicate
and difficult mission to one of those petty German
potentates who make up for very small territories
by gigantic pretensions, and balance a vast
amount of pride against a scanty revenue.

The Earl, as a matter of course, acquitted
himself perfectly, and began thenceforth to be
talked of among his elders as " a rising man."
Then the Duke of Doncaster smiled graciously
upon him, and several of the cabinet ministers
fell into the way of asking him to their political
dinners; and the end of it all was, that just before
the setting in of the long vacation, Gervase
Leopold Wynneclyffe, Earl of Castletowers,
found himself inducted one morning into a very
neat little vacancy in the Perquisite Office,