I had just landed at Leghorn, where I left my maid to recover from the sea, and hurrying across Italy as I did, I still feared that I should not see him alive." The explanation was made readily in a low voice natural to one remembering a great distress, but without any affectation of gesture or so much as a glance sideways to note whether Wogan received it trustfully or not.

Wogan, indeed, was reassured in a great measure.
True, the Countess of Berg was now his declared enemy, but he need not join all her friends in that hostility.
"I was able, most happily," continued Lady Featherstone, "to send my brother homewards in a ship a fortnight back, and so to stay with my friend here on my way to Vienna, for we English are all bitten with the madness of travel.

Mr.Warner will bear me out ?" "To be sure I will," said Wogan, stoutly.

"For here am I in the depths of winter journeying to the carnival in Italy." The Countess smiled, all disbelief and amusement, and Lady Featherstone turned quickly towards him.
"For my frankness I claim a like frankness in return," said she, with a pretty imperiousness.
Wogan was a little startled.

He suddenly remembered that he had pretended to know no English on the road to Bologna, nor had he given any reason for his haste.