or; and so it
chanced that he saw Lena, who was mindful that her sister had suffered
much from passive jealousy when Wilfrid returned from the glorious field,
and led him to Anna, that she also might rejoice in a hero. Weisspriess
did not refrain from declaring on the way that he would rather charge
against a battery. Some time after, Anna lay in Lena's arms, sobbing out
one of the wildest confessions ever made by woman:--she adored
Weisspriess; she hated Nagen; but was miserably bound to the man she
hated. "Oh! now I know what love is." She repeated this with transparent
enjoyment of the opposing sensations by whose shock the knowledge was
revealed to her.

"How can you be bound to Major Nagan?" asked Lena.

"Oh! why? except that I have been possessed by devils."

Anna moaned. "Living among these Italians has distempered my blood." She
exclaimed that she was lost.

"In what way can you be lost?" said Lena.

"I have squandered more than half that I possess. I am almost a beggar. I
am no longer the wealthy Countess Anna. I am much poorer than anyone of
us."

"But Major Weisspriess is a man of honour, and if he loves you--"

"Yes; he loves me! he loves me! or would he come to me after I have sent
him against a dozen swords? But he is poor; he must, must marry a wealthy
woman. I used to hate him because I thought he had his eye on money. I
love him for it now. He deserves wealth; he is a matchless hero. He is
more than the first swordsman of our army; he is a knightly man. Oh my
soul Johann!" She very soon fell to raving. Lena was implored by her to
give her hand to Weisspriess in reward for his heroism--"For you are
rich," Anna said; "you will not have to go to him feeling that you have
made him face death a dozen times for your sake, and that you thank him
and reward him by being a whimpering beggar in his arms. Do, dearest!
Will you? Will you, to please me, marry Johann? He is not unworthy of
you." And more of this hysterical hypocrisy, which brought on fits of
weeping. "I have lived among these savages till I have ceased to be
human--forgotten everything but my religion," she said. "I wanted
Weisspriess to show them that they dared not stand up against a man of
us, and to tame the snarling curs. He did. He is brave. He did as much as
a man could do, but I was unappeasable. They seem to have bitten me till
I had a devouring hunger to humiliate them. Lena, will you believe that I
have no hate for Carlo Ammiani or