He remarked: 'I will tell them that the signorina does not give the signal.'
'Tell them that the name she has chosen shall be Vittoria still; but say, that she feels a shadow of suspicion to be an injunction upon her at such a crisis, and she will serve silently and humbly until she is rightly known, and her time comes. She is willing to appear before them, and submit to interrogation. She knows her innocence, and knowing that they work for the good of the country, she, if it is their will, is content to be blotted out of all participation:—all! She abjures all for the common welfare. Say that. And say, to-morrow night the rising must be. Oh! to-morrow night! It is my husband to me.'
Laura Piaveni crossed her arms upon her bosom.
Ammiani was moving from them with a downward face, when a bell-note of Vittoria's voice arrested him.
'Stay, Signor Carlo; I shall sing to-morrow night.'
The widow heard her through that thick emotion which had just closed her' speech with its symbolical sensuous rapture. Divining opposition fiercely, like a creature thwarted when athirst for the wells, she gave her a terrible look, and then said cajolingly, as far as absence of sweetness could make the tones pleasant, 'Yes, you will sing, but you will not sing that song.'
'It is that song which I intend to sing, signora.'
'When it is interdicted?'
'There is only one whose interdict I can acknowledge.'
'You will dare to sing in defiance of me?'