Gambier lay badly wounded; brandy was wanted for him.  She flung a cloak over Laura, and handed out the flask with a naked arm.  It was not till she saw him again that she remembered or even felt that he had kissed the arm.  A spot of sweet fire burned on it just where the soft fulness of a woman’s arm slopes to the bend.  He chid her for being on the field and rejoiced in a breath, for the carriage and its contents helped to rescue his wounded brother in arms from probable death.  Gambier, wounded in thigh and ankle by rifle-shot, was placed in the carriage.  His clothes were saturated with the soil of Goito; but wounded and wet, he smiled gaily, and talked sweet boyish English.  Merthyr gave the driver directions to wind along up the Mincio.  “Georgiana will be at the nearest village—­she has an instinct for battle-fields, or keeps spies in her pay,” he said.

“Tell her I am safe.  We march to cut them (the enemy) off from Verona, and I can’t leave.  The game is in our hands.  We shall give you Venice.”

Georgiana was found at the nearest village.  Gambier’s wounds had been dressed by an army-surgeon.  She looked at the dressing, and said that it would do for six hours.  This singular person had fully qualified herself to attend on a soldier-brother.  She had studied medicine for that purpose, and she had served as nurse in a London hospital.  Her nerves were completely under control.  She could sit in attendance by a sick-bed for hours, hearing distant cannon, and the brawl of soldiery and vagabonds in the street, without a change of countenance.  Her dress was plain black from throat to heel, with a skull cap of white, like a Moravian sister.  Vittoria reverenced her; but Georgiana’s manner in return was cold aversion, so much more scornful than disdain that it offended Laura, who promptly put her finger on the blot in the fair character with the word ‘Jealousy;’ but a single word is too broad a mark to be exactly true.  “She is a perfect example of your English,” Laura said.  “Brave, good, devoted, admirable—­ice at the heart.  The judge of others, of course.  I always respected her; I never liked her; and I should be afraid of a comparison with her.  Her management of the household of this inn is extraordinary.”

Georgiana condescended to advise Vittoria once more not to dangle after armies.

“I wish to wait here to assist you in nursing our friend,” said Vittoria.

Georgiana replied that her strength was unlikely to fail.

After two days of incessant rain, sunshine blazed over ’the watery Mantuan flats.  Laura drove with Beppo to see whether the army was in motion, for they were distracted by rumours.  Vittoria clung to her wounded friend, whose pleasure was the hearing her speak.  She expected Laura’s return by set of sun.  After dark a messenger came to her, saying that the signora had sent a carriage to fetch her to Valeggio.  Her immediate supposition was that Merthyr might have fallen.  She found Luigi at the carriage-door, and listened to his mysterious directions and remarks that not a minute must be lost, without suspicion.  He said that the signora was in great trouble, very anxious to see the signorina instantly; there was but a distance of five miles to traverse.