“No,” said Merthyr; “there are bounds to human strength; that is all.”

She answered:  “There would be to mine—­if I had not more than human strength beside me.  I bow my head, dearest; it is that.  I feel that I cannot break down as long as I know what is passing.  Does my husband live?”

“Yes, he lives,” said Merthyr; and she gave him her hand, and went to her bed.

He learnt from Laura that when Beppo mounted the carriage in silence, a fit of ungovernable wild trembling had come on her, broken at intervals by a cry that something was concealed.  Laura could give no advice; she looked on Merthyr and Vittoria as two that had an incomprehensible knowledge of the power of one another’s natures, and the fiery creature remained passive in perplexity of minds as soft an attendant as a suffering woman could have: 

Merthyr did not sleep, and in the morning Vittoria said to him, “You want to be active, my friend.  Go, and we will wait for you here.  I know that I am never deceived by you, and when I see you I know that the truth speaks and bids me be worthy of it Go up there,” she pointed with shut eyes at the mountains; “leave me to pray for greater strength.  I am among Italians at this inn; and shall spend money here; the poor people love it.”  She smiled a little, showing a glimpse of her old charitable humour.

Merthyr counselled Laura that in case of evil tidings during his absence she should reject her feminine ideas of expediency, and believe that she was speaking to a brave soul firmly rooted in the wisdom of heaven.

“Tell her?—­she will die,” said Laura, shuddering.

“Get tears from her,” Merthyr rejoined; “but hide nothing from her for a single instant; keep her in daylight.  For God’s sake, keep her in daylight.”

“It’s too sharp a task for me.”  She repeated that she was incapable of it.

“Ah,” said he, “look at your Italy, how she weeps! and she has cause.  She would die in her grief, if she had no faith for what is to come.  I dare say it is not, save in the hearts of one or two, a conscious faith, but it’s real divine strength; and Alessandra Ammiani has it.  Do as I bid you.  I return in two days.”

Without understanding him, Laura promised that she would do her utmost to obey, and he left her muttering to herself as if she were schooling her lips to speak reluctant words.  He started for the mountains with gladdened limbs, taking a guide, who gave his name as Lorenzo, and talked of having been ‘out’ in the previous year.  “I am a patriot, signore! and not only in opposition to my beast of a wife, I assure you:  a downright patriot, I mean.”  Merthyr was tempted to discharge him at first, but controlled his English antipathy to babblers, and discovered him to be a serviceable fellow.  Toward nightfall they heard shots up a rock-strewn combe of the lower slopes; desultory shots indicating rifle-firing at long range.