Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/86

Rh will find their way to Poland, and the same into Tuscany, by routes that all your sbirri will never discover; I know that it was at her salons in Paris that the war of Sicily was first organised; I know that she is the life, the soul, the core, the prophetess of every national movement. I know that she holds the threads of every insurrectionary movement from the Apennines to the Caucasus" Monsignore made a slight gesture of impatience; while shading his eyes with the hand on which the episcopal amethyst glittered, he narrowly watched the immutable countenance of his companion.

"We know all these, and much more," he said, with an accent of disappointed irritation. "If we can once secure her person, we have witness enough against her to consign her twenty times over to the peine forte et dure, to the prison, or the convent cell, for her lifetime. Idalia!—she is Satanas!—you have more to tell than these stories, figlio mio?"

"Or I would not have wearied your Grace tonight," assented Vane, still with that calm and undeviating air as of one who, having learnt a recitation by heart, mechanically, yet unwaveringly, repeats it out. "Yes, I know more; I know that she is—here."

"Here!"