They noticed one another’s embrowned complexions, but embraced silently.  “Twice widowed!” Laura said when they sat together.  Laura hushed all speaking of the war or allusion to a single incident of the miserable campaign, beyond the bare recital of Vittoria’s adventures; yet when Vicenza by chance was mentioned, she burst out:  “They are not cities, they are living shrieks.  They have been made impious for ever.  Burn them to ashes, that they may not breathe foul upon heaven!” She had clung to the skirts of the army as far as the field of Custozza.  “He,” she said, pointing to the room where Merthyr lay,—­“he groans less than the others I have nursed.  Generally, when they looked at me, they appeared obliged to recollect that it was not I who had hurt them.  Poor souls! some ended in great torment.  ’I think of them as the happiest; for pain is a cloak that wraps you about, and I remember one middle-aged man who died softly at Custozza, and said, ‘Beaten!’ To take that thought as your travelling companion into the gulf, must be worse than dying of agony; at least, I think so.”

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.