fare at the inn, Vittoria's presence kept him lingering in
this wretched place, though he cried continually, "I shall have
heart-disease." He believed at first that he should subdue her; then it
became his intention to carry her off.

It was to see Merthyr that she remained. Merthyr came there the day
after the engagement at Santa Lucia. They had not met since the days at
Meran. He was bronzed, and keen with strife, and looked young, but spoke
not over-hopefully. He scolded her for wishing to taste battle, and
compared her to a bad swimmer on deep shores. Pericles bounded with
delight to hear him, and said he had not supposed there was so much
sense in Powys. Merthyr confessed that the Austrians had as good as
beaten them at Santa Lucia. The tactical combinations of the Piedmontese
were wretched. He was enamoured of the gallantly of the Duke of Savoy,
who had saved the right wing of the army from rout while covering the
backward movement. Why there had been any fight at all at Santa Lucia,
where nothing was to be gained, much to be lost, he was incapable of
telling; but attributed it to an antique chivalry on the part of the
king, that had prompted the hero to a trial of strength, a bout of
blood-letting.

"You do think he is a hero?" said Vittoria.

"He is; and he will march to Venice."

"And open the opera at Venice," Pericles sneered. "Powys, mon cher,
cure her of this beastly dream. It is a scandal to you to want a woman's
help. You were defeated at Santa Lucia. I say bravo to anything that
brings you to reason. Bravo! You hear me."

The engagement at Santa Lucia was designed by the king to serve as an
instigating signal for the Veronese to rise in revolt; and this was the
secret of Charles Albert's stultifying manoeuvres between Peschiera
and Mantua. Instead of matching his military skill against the wary old
Marshal's, he was offering incentives to conspiracy. Distrusting the
revolution, which was a force behind him, he placed such reliance on its
efforts in his front as to make it the pivot of his actions.

"The volunteers North-east of Vicenza are doing the real work for us,
I believe," said Merthyr; and it seemed so then, as it might have been
indeed, had they not been left almost entirely to themselves to do it.

These tidings of a fight lost set Laura and Vittoria quivering with
nervous irritation. They had been on the field of Pastrengo, and it was
won. They had been absent from Santa Lucia. What was