Colomba had seated herself behind Orso.  She raised him carefully so that his head might rest on her lap.  She put her arms round his neck and signed to Miss Lydia to come near him.

“Closer! closer!” she said.  “A sick man mustn’t talk too loud.”  And when Miss Lydia hesitated, she caught her hand and forced her to sit down so close to Orso that her dress touched him, and her hand, still in Colomba’s grasp, lay on the wounded man’s shoulder.

“Now he’s very comfortable!” said Colomba cheerily.  “Isn’t it good to lie out in the maquis on such a lovely night?  Eh, Orso?”

“How you must be suffering!” exclaimed Miss Lydia.

“My suffering is all gone now,” said Orso, “and I should like to die here!” And his right hand crept up toward Miss Lydia’s, which Colomba still held captive.

“You really must be taken to some place where you can be properly cared for, Signor della Rebbia,” said Miss Nevil.  “I shall never be able to sleep in my bed, now that I have seen you lying here, so uncomfortable, in the open air.”

“If I had not been afraid of meeting you, Miss Nevil, I should have tried to get back to Pietranera, and I should have given myself up to the authorities.”

“And why were you afraid of meeting her, Orso?” inquired Colomba.

“I had disobeyed you, Miss Nevil, and I should not have dared to look at you just then.”

“Do you know you make my brother do everything you choose, Miss Lydia?” said Colomba, laughing.  “I won’t let you see him any more.”

“I hope this unlucky business will soon be cleared up, and that you will have nothing more to fear,” said Miss Nevil.  “I shall be so happy, when we go away, to know justice has been done you, and that both your loyalty and your bravery have been acknowledged.”

“Going away, Miss Nevil!  Don’t say that word yet!”

“What are we to do?  My father can not spend his whole life shooting.  He wants to go.”

Orso’s hand, which had been touching Miss Lydia’s, dropped away, and there was silence for a moment.

“Nonsense!” said Colomba.  “We won’t let you go yet.  We have plenty of things to show you still at Pietranera.  Besides, you have promised to paint my picture, and you haven’t even begun it so far.  And then I’ve promised to compose you a serenata, with seventy-five verses.  And then—­but what can Brusco be growling about?  And here’s Brandolaccio running after him.  I must go and see what’s amiss.”

She rose at once, and laying Orso’s head, without further ceremony, on Miss Lydia’s lap, she ran after the bandits.

Miss Nevil, somewhat startled at finding herself thus left in sole charge of a handsome young Corsican gentleman in the middle of a maquis, was rather puzzled what to do next.

For she was afraid that any sudden movement on her part might hurt the wounded man.  But Orso himself resigned the exquisite pillow on which his sister had just laid his head, and raising himself on his right arm, he said: