The answer was ready:  “Having twice served as a traitor, I need not be particular.  It is what my uncle and the Lenkensteins call me.  I do my best to work my way up again.  Despise me for it, if you please.”

On the contrary, she had never respected him so much.  She got herself into opposition to him by provoking him to speak with pride of his army; but the opposition was artificial, and she called to Carlo Ammiani in heart.  “I will leave these places, cover up my head, and crouch till the struggle is decided.”

The difficulty was now to be happily rid of Wilfrid by leaving him in safety.  Piedmontese horse scoured the neighbourhood, and any mischance that might befall him she traced to her hand.  She dreaded at every instant to hear him speak of his love for her; yet how sweet it would have been to hear it,—­to hear him speak of passionate love; to shape it in deep music; to hear one crave for what she gave to another!  “I am sinking:  I am growing degraded,” she thought.  But there was no other way for her to quicken her imagination of her distant and offended lover.  The sights on the plains were strange contrasts to these conflicting inner emotions:  she seemed to be living in two divided worlds.

Pericles declared anew that she was mistress of the carriage.  She issued orders:  “The nearest point to Rivoli, and then to Brescia.”

Pericles broke into shouts.  “She has arrived at her reason!  Hurrah for Brescia!  I beheld you,” he confessed to Wilfrid,—­“it was on ze right of Mincio, my friend.  I did not know you were so true for Art, or what a hand I would have reached to you!  Excuse me now.  Let us whip on.  I am your banker.  I shall desire you not to be shot or sabred.  You are deserving of an effigy on a theatral grand stair-case!” His gratitude could no further express itself.  In joy he whipped the horses on.  Fools might be fighting—­he was the conqueror.  From Brescia, one leap took him in fancy to London.  He composed mentally a letter to be forwarded immediately to a London manager, directing him to cause the appearance of articles in the journals on the grand new prima donna, whose singing had awakened the people of Italy.

Another day brought them in view of the Lago di Garda.  The flag of Sardinia hung from the walls of Peschiera.  And now Vittoria saw the Pastrengo hills—­dear hills, that drove her wretched languor out of her, and made her soul and body one again.  The horses were going at a gallop.  Shots were heard.  To the left of them, somewhat in the rear, on higher ground, there was an encounter of a body of Austrians and Italians:  Tyrolese riflemen and the volunteers.  Pericles was raving.  He refused to draw the reins till they had reached the village, where one of the horses dropped.  From the windows of the inn, fronting a clear space, Vittoria beheld a guard of Austrians surrounding two or more prisoners.  A woman sat near them with her head buried in her lap.