Wilfrid was left pacing the hall.  He thought he had never beheld so splendid a person, or one so subjugatingly gracious.  Her speech and manner poured oil on the uncivil Austrian nobleman.  What perchance had stricken Lena?

He guessed; and guessed it rightly.  A folded scrap of paper signed by the Countess of Lenkenstein was brought to him.

It said:—­“Are you making common cause with the rebels?  Reply.  One asks who should be told.”

He wrote:—­“I am an outcast of the army.  I fight as a volunteer with the K. K. troops.  Could I abandon them in their peril?”

The touch of sentiment he appended for Lena’s comfort.  He was too strongly impressed by the new vision of beauty in the house for his imagination to be flushed by the romantic posture of his devotion to a trailing flag.

No other message was delivered.  Ammiani presently descended and obtained a guard from the barricade; word was sent on to the barricades in advance toward the citadel.  Wilfrid stood aside as Count Lenkenstein led the ladies to the door, bearing Lena on his arm.  She passed her lover veiled.  The count said, “You follow.”  He used the menial second person plural of German, and repeated it peremptorily.

“I follow no civilian,” said Wilfrid.

“Remember, sir, that if you are seen with arms in your hands, and are not in the ranks, you run the chances of being hanged.”

Lena broke loose from her brother; in spite of Anna’s sharp remonstrance and the count’s vexed stamp of the foot, she implored her lover:—­“Come with us; pardon us; protect me—­me!  You shall not be treated harshly.  They shall not Oh! be near me.  I have been ill; I shrink from danger.  Be near me!”

Such humble pleading permitted Wilfrid’s sore spirit to succumb with the requisite show of chivalrous dignity.  He bowed, and gravely opened his enormous umbrella, which he held up over the heads of the ladies, while Ammiani led the way.  All was quiet near the citadel.  A fog of plashing rain hung in red gloom about the many watchfires of the insurgents, but the Austrian head-quarters lay sombre and still.  Close at the gates, Ammiani saluted the ladies.  Wilfrid did the same, and heard Lena’s call to him unmoved.

“May I dare to hint to you that it would be better for you to join your party?” said Ammiani.

Wilfrid walked on.  After appearing to weigh the matter, he answered, “The umbrella will be of no further service to them to-night.”

Ammiani laughed, and begged to be forgiven; but he could have done nothing more flattering.

Sore at all points, tricked and ruined, irascible under the sense of his injuries, hating everybody and not honouring himself, Wilfrid was fast growing to be an eccentric by profession.  To appear cool and careless was the great effort of his mind.

“We were introduced one day in the Piazza d’Armi,” said Ammiani.  “I would have found means to convey my apologies to you for my behaviour on that occasion, but I have been at the mercy of my enemies.  Lieutenant Pierson, will you pardon me?  I have learnt how dear you and your family should be to me.  Pray, accept my excuses and my counsel.  The Countess Lena was my friend when I was a boy.  She is in deep distress.”