An hour passed before Annette appeared, who then came weeping and sobbing. “O Ludovico—Ludovico!” cried she.
“My poor Annette!” said Emily, and made her sit down.
“Who could have foreseen this, ma’amselle? O miserable, wretched, day—that ever I should live to see it!” and she continued to moan and lament, till Emily thought it necessary to check her excess of grief. “We are continually losing dear friends by death,” said she, with a sigh, that came from her heart. “We must submit to the will of Heaven—our tears, alas! cannot recall the dead!”
Annette took the handkerchief from her face.
“You will meet Ludovico in a better world, I hope,” added Emily.
“Yes—yes,—ma’amselle,” sobbed Annette, “but I hope I shall meet him again in this—though he is so wounded!”
“Wounded!” exclaimed Emily, “does he live?”
“Yes, ma’am, but—but he has a terrible wound, and could not come to let me out. They thought him dead, at first, and he has not been rightly himself, till within this hour.”
“Well, Annette, I rejoice to hear he lives.”
“Lives! Holy Saints! why he will not die, surely!”