“No; they begin to hum a reproach at me already, for I must be marching.  Vicenza will soon bubble on a fire, I suspect.  Comfort my mother; she wants a young heart at her elbow.  If she is alone, she feeds on every rumour; other women scatter in emotions what poisons her.  And when my bride is with her, I am between them.”

“Yes, Carlo, I will go,” said Vittoria, seeing her duty at last through tenderness.

Carlo sprang from her side to meet Angelo, with whom he exchanged some quick words.  The bugle was sounding, and Barto Rizzo audible.  Luigi came to, her, ruefully announcing that the volunteers had sacked the carriage behaved worse than the Austrians; and that his padrone, the signor Antonio-Pericles, was off like a gossamer.  Angelo induced her to remain on the spot where she stood till the carriage was seen on the Schio road, when he led her to it, saying that Carlo had serious work to do.  Count Karl Lenkenstein was lying in the carriage, supported by Wilfrid and by young Leone Rufo, who sat laughing, with one eye under a cross-bandage and an arm slung in a handkerchief.  Vittoria desired to wait that she might see her lover once more; but Angelo entreated her that she should depart, too earnestly to leave her in doubt of there being good reason for it and for her lover’s absence.  He pointed to Wilfrid:  “Barto Rizzo captured this man; Carlo has released him.  Take him with you to attend on his superior officer.”  She drew Angelo’s observation to the first morning colours over the peaks.  He looked up, and she knew that he remembered that morning of their flight from the inn.  Perhaps he then had the image of his brother in his mind, for the colours seemed to be plucking at his heart, and he said, “I have lost him.”

“God help you, my friend!” said Vittoria, her throat choking.

Angelo pointed at the insensible nobleman:  “These live.  I do not grudge him his breath or his chances; but why should these men take so much killing?  Weisspriess has risen, as though I struck the blow of a babe.  But we one shot does for us!  Nevertheless, signorina,” Angelo smiled firmly, “I complain of nothing while we march forward.”

He kissed his hand to her, and turned back to his troop.  The carriage was soon under the shadows of the mountains.

CHAPTER XXXIV

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR

THE DEEDS OF BARTO RIZZO—­THE MEETING AT ROVEREDO

At Schio there was no medical attendance to be obtained for Count Karl, and he begged so piteously to be taken on to Roveredo, that, on his promising to give Leone Rufo a pass, Vittoria decided to work her way round to Brescia by the Alpine route.  She supposed Pericles to have gone off among the Tyrolese, and wished in her heart that Wilfrid had gone likewise, for he continued to wear that look of sad stupefaction