Vittoria was too well used to Laura’s way of meeting disaster to expect from her other than this ironical fortitude, in which the fortitude leaned so much upon the irony.  What really astonished her was the conception Laura had taken of the might of Austria.  Laura did not directly speak of it, but shadowed it in allusive hints, much as if she had in her mind the image of an iron roller going over a field of flowers —­hateful, imminent, irresistible.  She felt as a leaf that has been flying before the gale.

Merthyr’s wound was severe:  Vittoria could not leave him.  Her resolution to stay in Milan brought her into collision with Countess Ammiani, when the countess reminded her of her promise, sedately informing her that she was no longer her own mistress, and had a primary duty to fulfil.  She offered to wait three days, or until the safety of the wounded man was medically certified to.  It was incomprehensible to her that Vittoria should reject her terms; and though it was true that she would not have listened to a reason, she was indignant at not hearing one given in mitigation of the offence.  She set out alone on her journey, deeply hurt.  The reason was a feminine sentiment, and Vittoria was naturally unable to speak it.  She shrank with pathetic horror from the thought of Merthyr’s rising from his couch to find her a married woman, and desired most earnestly that her marriage should be witnessed by him.  Young women will know how to reconcile the opposition of the sentiment.  Had Merthyr been only slightly wounded, and sound enough to seem to be able to bear a bitter shock, she would not have allowed her personal feelings to cause chagrin to the noble lady.  The sight of her dear steadfast friend prostrate in the cause of Italy, and who, if he lived to rise again, might not have his natural strength to bear the thought of her loss with his old brave firmness, made it impossible for her to act decisively in one direct line of conduct.

Countess Ammiani wrote brief letters from Luino and Pallanza on Lago Maggiore.  She said that Carlo was in the Como mountains; he would expect to find his bride, and would accuse his mother; “but his mother will be spared those reproaches,” she added, “if the last shot fired kills, as it generally does, the bravest and the dearest.”

“If it should!”—­the thought rose on a quick breath in Vittoria’s bosom, and the sentiment which held her away dispersed like a feeble smoke, and showed her another view of her features.  She wept with longing for love and dependence.  She was sick of personal freedom, tired of the exercise of her will, only too eager to give herself to her beloved.  The blessedness of marriage, of peace and dependence, came on her imagination like a soft breeze from a hidden garden, like sleep.  But this very longing created the resistance to it in the depths of her soul.  ’There was a light as of reviving life, or of pain comforted, when it was she who was sitting by Merthyr’s