Vittoria recognized the features of Violetta d’Isorella as the original of the portrait.

They arrived at Roveredo late in the evening.  The wounded man again entreated Vittoria to remain by him till a messenger should bring one of his sisters from Trent.  “See,” she said to Leone, “how I give grounds for suspicion of me; I nurse an enemy.”

“Here is a case where Barto is distinctly to blame,” the lad replied.  “The poor fellow must want nursing, for he can’t smoke.”

Anna von Lenkenstein came from Trent to her brother’s summons.  Vittoria was by his bedside, and the sufferer had fallen asleep with his head upon her arm.  Anna looked upon this scene with more hateful amazement than her dull eyelids could express.  She beckoned imperiously for her to come away, but Vittoria would not allow him to be disturbed, and Anna sat and faced her.  The sleep was long.  The eyes of the two women met from time to time, and Vittoria thought that Barto Rizzo’s wife, though more terrible, was pleasanter to behold, and less brutal, than Anna.  The moment her brother stirred, Anna repeated her imperious gesture, murmuring, “Away! out of my sight!” With great delicacy of touch she drew the arm from the pillow and thrust it back, and then motioning in an undisguised horror, said, “Go.”  Vittoria rose to go.

“Is it my Lena?” came from Karl’s faint lips.

“It is your Anna.”

“I should have known,” he moaned.

Vittoria left them.

Some hours later, Countess Lena appeared, bringing a Trentino doctor. 
She said when she beheld Vittoria, “Are you our evil genius, then?”
Vittoria felt that she must necessarily wear that aspect to them.

Still greater was Lena’s amazement when she looked on Wilfrid.  She passed him without a sign.

Vittoria had to submit to an interview with both sisters before her departure.  Apart from her distress on their behalf, they had always seemed as very weak, flippant young women to her, and she could have smiled in her heart when Anna pointed to a day of retribution in the future.

“I shall not seek to have you assassinated,” Anna said; “do not suppose that I mean the knife or the pistol.  But your day will come, and I can wait for it.  You murdered my brother Paul:  you have tried to murder my brother Karl.  I wish you to leave this place convinced of one thing:—­ you shall be repaid for it.”

There was no direct allusion either to Weisspriess or to Wilfrid.

Lena spoke of the army.  “You think our cause is ruined because we have insurrection on all sides of us:  you do not know our army.  We can fight the Hungarians with one hand, and you Italians with the other—­with a little finger.  On what spot have we given way?  We have to weep, it is true; but tears do not testify to defeat; and already I am inclined to pity those fools who have taken part against us.  Some have experienced the fruits of their folly.”