This was the nearest approach to a hint at Wilfrid’s misconduct.

Lena handed Leone’s pass to Vittoria, and drawing out a little pocket almanac, said, “You proceed to Milan, I presume.  I do not love your society; mademoiselle Belloni or Campa:  yet I do not mind making an appointment—­the doctor says a month will set my brother on his feet again,—­I will make an appointment to meet you in Milan or Como, or anywhere in your present territories, during the month of August.  That affords time for a short siege and two pitched battles.”

She appeared to be expecting a retort.

Vittoria replied, “I could beg one thing on my knees of you, Countess Lena.”

“And that is—?” Lena threw her head up superbly.

“Pardon my old friend the service he did me through friendship.”

The sisters interchanged looks.  Lena flushed angrily.

Anna said, “The person to whom yon allude is here.”

“He is attending on your brother.”

“Did he help this last assassin to escape, perchance?”

Vittoria sickened at the cruel irony, and felt that she had perhaps done ill in beginning to plead for Wilfrid.

“He is here; let him speak for himself:  but listen to him, Countess Lena.”

“A dishonourable man had better be dumb,” interposed Anna.

“Ah! it is I who have offended you.”

“Is that his excuse?”

Vittoria kept her eyes on the fiercer sister, who now declined to speak.

“I will not excuse my own deeds; perhaps I cannot.  We Italians are in a hurricane; I cannot reflect.  It may be that I do not act more thinkingly than a wild beast.”

“You have spoken it,” Anna exclaimed.

“Countess Lena, he fights in your ranks as a common soldier.  He encounters more than a common soldier’s risks.”

“The man is brave,—­we knew that,” said Anna.

“He is more than brave, he is devoted.  He fights against us, without hope of reward from you.  Have I utterly ruined him?”

“I imagine that you may regard it as a fact that you have utterly ruined him,” said Anna, moving to break up the parting interview.  Lena turned to follow her.

“Ladies, if it is I who have hardened your hearts, I am more guilty than I thought.”  Vittoria said no more.  She knew that she had been speaking badly, or ineffectually, by a haunting flatness of sound, as of an unstrung instrument, in her ears:  she was herself unstrung and dispirited, while the recollection of Anna’s voice was like a sombre conquering monotony on a low chord, with which she felt insufficient to compete.

Leone was waiting in the carriage to drive to the ferry across the Adige.  There was news in Roveredo of the king’s advance upon Rivoli; and Leone sat trying to lift and straighten out his wounded arm, with grimaces of laughter at the pain of the effort, which resolutely refused to acknowledge him to be an able combatant.  At the carriage-door Wilfrid bowed once over Vittoria’s hand.