ds for
suspicion of me; I nurse an enemy."

"Here is a case where Barto is distinctly to blame," the lad replied.
"The poor fellow must want nursing, for he can't smoke."

Anna von Lenkenstein came from Trent to her brother's summons. Vittoria
was by his bedside, and the sufferer had fallen asleep with his head upon
her arm. Anna looked upon this scene with more hateful amazement than her
dull eyelids could express. She beckoned imperiously for her to come
away, but Vittoria would not allow him to be disturbed, and Anna sat and
faced her. The sleep was long. The eyes of the two women met from time to
time, and Vittoria thought that Barto Rizzo's wife, though more terrible,
was pleasanter to behold, and less brutal, than Anna. The moment her
brother stirred, Anna repeated her imperious gesture, murmuring, "Away!
out of my sight!" With great delicacy of touch she drew the arm from the
pillow and thrust it back, and then motioning in an undisguised horror,
said, "Go." Vittoria rose to go.

"Is it my Lena?" came from Karl's faint lips.

"It is your Anna."

"I should have known," he moaned.

Vittoria left them.

Some hours later, Countess Lena appeared, bringing a Trentino doctor. She
said when she beheld Vittoria, "Are you our evil genius, then?" Vittoria
felt that she must necessarily wear that aspect to them.

Still greater was Lena's amazement when she looked on Wilfrid. She passed
him without a sign.

Vittoria had to submit to an interview with both sisters before her
departure. Apart from her distress on their behalf, they had always
seemed as very weak, flippant young women to her, and she could have
smiled in her heart when Anna pointed to a day of retribution in the
future.

"I shall not seek to have you assassinated," Anna said; "do not suppose
that I mean the knife or the pistol. But your day will come, and I can
wait for it. You murdered my brother Paul: you have tried to murder my
brother Karl. I wish you to leave this place convinced of one thing:--you
shall be repaid for it."

There was no direct allusion either to Weisspriess or to Wilfrid.

Lena spoke of the army. "You think our cause is ruined because we have
insurrection on all sides of us: you do not know our army. We can fight
the Hungarians with one hand, and you Italians with the other--with a
little finger. On what spot have we given way? We have to weep, it is
true; but tears do not testify to defeat; and already I am inclined to
pity