“It is not safe back in there,” she said, pointing to the convent.  “A shell may hit it.”

The sister nodded.

“It hardly matters,” she replied quietly.  “No place is safe.  We will take him there; he is too ill to be carried far.”

Lucia agreed, and between them they carried the unconscious Roderigo back to the ward and laid him gently on one of the beds.

Sister Francesca turned back the cuffs of her robe and began doing what she could.  As she worked she talked.

“We were all ordered to leave,” she said; “but when we were well along the road I turned back.  It seemed so cowardly to go when we were most needed.  The rest thought that by night the Austrians would be in possession, but I could not believe it.”

She was a little woman with a soft voice and big blue eyes, and she spoke with such gentle assurance that Lucia felt comforted.

“They will not come to-night,” she said, “for the bridge is down, and our troops will surely be able to force them back.”

Sister Francesca nodded.

“I hope so.  At any rate, there will be wounded and my place is here.”

At the word “wounded,” the vivid picture of the smoke-choked valley, the shell explosion, and the still form of the Italian soldier flashed before Lucia’s mind.

“What am I doing here?” she said impatiently.  “There are wounded now and perhaps we can save them.”

She did not offer any further explanation, but slipped out of the big room and hurried back to the road once more.

The sun had set and twilight gleamed patchy through the clouds of smoke.  It was still light enough to see, and Lucia hurried to the gate.  The first sight that she had of Cellino made her stop and shudder.  The church was in ruins, and every pane of glass was broken in the entire village.  In their haste the refugees had thrown their belongings out of their windows to the street below, and then had gone off and left them.  Great piles of furniture and broken china littered the way, and stalls had been tipped over in the market place.

No one stopped Lucia; the town was deserted.  She ran hurriedly across to the North Gate, afraid of the ghostly shadows and unnatural sights.  At the gate a splendid sight met her eyes.

From the convent she had only seen the Austrians, the wall had cut off her view of the west.  But now she commanded a view of the whole field, and to her joy the Italians were advancing as steadily from the west as the Austrians from the east.  They would meet at the river, and at the memory of the bridge Lucia threw back her head and laughed.  It was not a merry laugh, but a grim triumphant one, and it held all the relief that she felt.

But, splendid as the sight before her was, she did not stay long to look at it.  Below, somewhere in the valley, the Italian soldier of the shining white teeth and the pennies was lying wounded, or dead, and nothing could make Lucia stop until she found him.