_We may perhaps be pardoned for thinking it probable that Mrs. Please, on her return to Paris, would have recanted her extremist views, had it not been for this romantic_ exalté, _to whom, no doubt, she at the time was sincerely attached. It is possible, indeed, that she did persuade him of the necessity of an_ open _recantation, in order that she might consort with him the more safely in those measures which he, and for his sake she, had at heart--the violent establishment of a republic at Naples, to wit. For, for the moment, sanscullotism was out of fashion, and propagandists at a discount. It made no difference to her, apparently, that her former patroness and saviour was heart and soul with the court of Ferdinand. She was of the Roman mettle, and would have sacrificed her own child to Liberty--with Pissani. I swear my heart bleeds for her; for_ (_the truth has to be uttered_) _that passionate young zealot was no sooner made free of the house in the Rue St. Jacques, than he fell hopelessly entangled in the unconscious meshes of poor blameless, lovable little Patty Grant. And, worse: Miss Grant, without a thought of disloyalty to her friend and sister--who, indeed, persistently, and perhaps justifiably, posed for no more than the Neapolitan’s pious fellow-missionary--yielded her whole sweet soul to him!_ _Nothing was declared, or came of this at the time. Pissani went back to Naples; the two--he and Diana: not he and another, you may be sure, unless by stealth--corresponded regularly; the march of events proceeded; our heroine managed, no doubt, to console herself, provisionally, for the separation. Perhaps she may have been conscious of an alteration in her friend; a hint of some sad preoccupation; the bright eyes dulling, the white face growing ever a little more white and drawn. If she did, she chose, while biding her time of enlightenment, to attach any but the right reason to the change. She seems to confess, indeed, that she had the suspicion. Like enough, in that case, she indulged it for a perpetual stimulant to her romance, which might have withered without. She was not one to bear tamely her supplanting by another--least of all by the little humble slave of her passions and caprices, of her kisses and disdains. And, in the meantime, the years went over them, while she was studying to ingratiate herself with the Directory, so that presently her house knew again its succession of ministers and deputies--men who came to lighten their leisure with a little interlude of love or wit. And so we reach the crisis._