id 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 the woman he has married? None!
and yet, what have I done!" Anna smote her forehead. "They are nothing
but little dots on a field for me. I don't care whether they live or
die. It's like a thing done in sleep."

"I want to know wh