Violante.—"Surely he speaks of Italy, and news from that country affects you still, my father."
Riccabocca.—"Nay, nay, nothing affects me like this country: its east winds might affect a pyramid! Draw your mantle round you, child, and go in; the air has suddenly grown chill."
Violante smiled on her father, glanced uneasily towards Randal's grave brow, and went slowly towards the house.
Riccabocca, after waiting some moments in silence, as if expecting Randal to speak, said with affected carelessness, "So you think that you have news that might affect me? Corpo di Bacco! I am curious to learn what!"
"I may be mistaken—that depends on your answer to one question. Do you know the Count of Peschiera?"
Riccabocca winced, and turned pale. He could not baffle the watchful eye of the questioner.
"Enough," said Randal; "I see that I am right. Believe in my sincerity. I speak but to warn and to serve you. The Count seeks to discover the retreat of a countryman and kinsman of his own."
"And for what end?" cried Riccabocca, thrown off his guard, and his breast dilated, his crest rose, and his eye flashed; valor and defiance broke from habitual caution and self-control. "But pooh," he added, striving to regain his ordinary and half-ironical calm, "it matters not to me. I grant, sir, that I know the Count di Peschiera; but what has Dr. Riccabocca to do with the kinsmen of so grand a personage?"
"Dr. Riccabocca—nothing. But—" here Randal put his lip close to the Italian's ear, and whispered a brief sentence. Then retreating a step, but laying his hand on the exile's shoulder, he added—"Need I say that your secret is safe with me?"
Riccabocca made no answer. His eyes rested on the ground musingly.