As for Mila, the consequences of her adventure were more serious, although she did not suspect it as yet. That romantic chapter in her life had left an ineffaceable impression on her brain. After trembling and weeping bitterly when she learned that she had recklessly surrendered herself as a hostage to the redoubtable Piccinino, she had made the best of her mistake, and had secretly become reconciled to the thought of that alarming personage, who had bequeathed to her, instead of shame, remorse and despair, naught but poetic memories, increased esteem for herself, and a bouquet of spotless flowers, which an undefinable instinct had led her to preserve carefully among her sentimental relics, after drying them with the greatest care. Mila was no coquette; we have proved it by telling how coquettish she was with the man whom she looked upon as her fiancé. Nor was she fickle; she would have been faithful to him until death, with a fidelity proof against every trial. But there are mysteries in a woman's heart, deeper and more incomprehensible in proportion to the woman's mental endowment and the exquisite charm of her nature. Moreover, there is something sweet and glorious to a young girl in the thought that she has succeeded in taming a terrible lion and has come forth safe and sound from a perilous adventure, solely by the power of her charm, her innocence and her courage. Mila realized now how brave and adroit she had been, quite unconsciously, in that great danger, and the man who had submitted so completely to the influence of her merit could not seem to her a contemptible or ordinary man. Thus a feeling of romantic gratitude enchained her to the memory of Captain Piccinino, and, despite all the evil people might say of him, it would have been impossible to shake her confidence in him. She had taken him for a prince; was he not a prince's son and Michel's brother? She had taken him for a hero, for the future liberator of his country; might he not become so, had he not that ambition? His soft speech, his charming manners had fascinated her; and why not? Had she not an even more intense infatuation for Princess Agatha, and was the one less legitimate and less pure than the other? All this did not prevent Mila from loving Magnani so fervently that she was always on the point of confessing her love in spite of herself; but a week had passed since their first quarrel, and the modest and timid Magnani had not as yet succeeded in extorting that confession. He would have obtained that victory a little later doubtless, perhaps on the very next day; but an unforeseen event brought confusion into Mila's existence and gravely compromised the welfare of all the characters of this narrative.