ighten out his wounded arm, with
grimaces of laughter at the pain of the effort, which resolutely refused
to acknowledge him to be an able combatant. At the carriage-door Wilfrid
bowed once over Vittoria's hand.

"You see that," Anna remarked to her sister.

"I should have despised him if he had acted indifference," replied Lena.

She would have suspected him--that was what her heart meant; the artful
show of indifference had deceived her once. The anger within her
drew its springs much more fully from his refusal to respond to her
affection, when she had in a fit of feminine weakness abased herself
before him on the night of the Milanese revolt, than from the
recollection of their days together in Meran. She had nothing of her
sister's unforgivingness. And she was besides keenly curious to discover
the nature of the charm Vittoria threw on him, and not on him solely.
Vittoria left Wilfrid to better chances than she supposed. "Continue
fighting with your army," she said, when they parted. The deeper shade
which traversed his features told her that, if she pleased, her sway
might still be active; but she had no emotion to spare for sentimental
regrets. She asked herself whether a woman who has cast her lot in
scenes of strife does not lose much of her womanhood and something of
her truth; and while her imagination remained depressed, her answer
was sad. In that mood she pitied Wilfrid with a reckless sense of her
inability to repay him for the harm she had done him. The tragedies
written in fresh blood all about her, together with that ever-present
image of the fate of Italy hanging in the balance, drew her away from
personal reflections. She felt as one in a war-chariot, who has not time
to cast more than a glance on the fallen. At the place where the ferry
is, she was rejoiced by hearing positive news of the proximity of the
Royal army. There were none to tell her that Charles Albert had here
made his worst move by leaving Vicenza to the operations of the enemy,
that he might become master of a point worthless when Vicenza fell into
the enemy's hands. The old Austrian Field-Marshal had eluded him at
Mantua on that very night when Vittoria had seen his troops in motion.
The daring Austrian flank-march on Vicenza, behind the fortresses of the
Quadrilateral, was the capital stroke of the campaign. But the presence
of a Piedmontese vanguard at Rivoli flushed the Adige with confidence,
and Vittoria went on her way sharing