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Updated: May 28, 2025
When it was ended he turned on me with the very phrase Ruffiano had used: "The hour is here!" "You can trust this man?" I asked. "Absolutely," he responded. I confessed that I should prefer to await a confirmation of his story by the newspapers, but the count interrupted me with a wave of the hand.
Ruffiano leaped to his feet, crying out in English: "Brothers, I claim a word!" and there was instant silence, every face turning attentively to his. He began to speak rapidly, with all his usual vehemence, and with even more than his usual plenitude of gesture.
There is Brunow, who was the fatal cause of it all; and the Baroness Bonnar, who made her cat's-paw of him; and Ruffiano, whom the two betrayed between them; and then there are left the count, and Miss Rossano, and the faithful Hinge.
It pleased his audience, beyond a doubt, for almost every sentence was punctuated with murmurs of approval; and when he sat down there was warm applause, in which almost everybody but Ruffiano joined, but he remained unconvinced and dissatisfied; it was evident from the way in which he rolled his gaunt figure in his chair, and his frequent cries of "No, no! wrong, wrong! absolutely wrong!"
The count delegated his authority as president of the council to Ruffiano, who, in spite of his outside singularities, was a man of much force of character, and, next to the count himself, commanded most completely the respect of the party. Ruffiano, the count, and I walked to Lady Rollin-son's house together, and Brunow came half-way.
I came here yesterday to consult Violet as to what I should do with respect to a plot in which I have found the baroness to be engaged. You have often heard the count and myself speak of poor old Ruffiano. You know him as one of Violet's pensioners, and, indeed, I remember that twice or thrice I have met him in your house.
"You will see," he said, "that the newspapers will confirm the story to-morrow, and in the meantime we shall have saved a day. France is awake, and the awaking of France is the dawn of liberty for Italy. We must hold a meeting to-night. You will wait?" he asked me. "I have a hundred things to talk of, but I must first despatch Count Ruffiano to our friends."
The cry was answered from aboard the boat, and a ladder was lowered to us by which we climbed on deck. Brunow went first, Ruffiano followed, and I went third. It struck me as a surprising thing that at the very minute on which my foot struck the ladder the boat shot from under me.
Ruffiano told me that he had left word at Brunow's lodgings that he might be found here, and we ate our simple dinner, drank our half-flask of Chianti together, and had already reached our coffee and cigars when Brunow came to keep his appointment. He was astonished to find me there, and, I thought, disagreeably astonished.
He never seemed to me to be altogether responsible, like other people, and the payment of his treachery was so swift and dreadful that the memory of it breeds a sort of half-forgiveness in my mind. There were scores of hard business details to be thought of and talked about, and we three conspirators sat together until the night was late. When at last Ruffiano left us, the count detained me.
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