And to Verona she went, all alone, in search of her lover. At that time the Austrians still maintained a sort of rule in the province; and there were still current orders against private travelling, orders that passports should be investigated, orders that the communication with the four fortresses should be specially guarded; but there was an intense desire on the part of the Austrians themselves that the orders should be regarded as little as possible. They had to go, and the more quietly they went the better. Why should they care now who passed hither and thither? It must be confessed on their behalf that in their surrender of Venetia they gave as little trouble as it was possible in them to cause.
The chief obstruction to Nina’s journey she experienced in the Campo San Luca itself. But in spite of her mother, in spite of the not yet defunct Austrian mandates, she did make her way to Verona. “As I was true in giving him up,” she said to herself, “so will I be true in clinging to him.”
Even in Verona her task was not easy, but she did at last find all that she sought. Captain von Vincke had been in command of a battery at Custozza, and was now lying wounded in an Austrian hospital. Nina contrived to see an old gray-haired surgeon before she saw Hubert himself. Captain von Vincke had been terribly mauled; so the surgeon told her; his left arm had been amputated, and—and—and——
It seemed as though wounds had been showered on him. The surgeon did not think that his patient would die; but he did think that he must be left in Verona when the Austrians were marched out of the fortress. “Can he not be taken to Venice?” said Nina Pepé.
At last she found herself by her lover’s bedside; but with her there were two hospital attendants, both of them worn-out Austrian soldiers,—and there was also there the gray-haired surgeon. How was she to tell her love, all that she had in her heart, before such witnesses? The surgeon was the first to speak. “Here is your friend, captain,” he said; but as he spoke in German Nina did not understand him.
“Is it really you, Nina?” said her lover. “I could hardly believe that you should be in Verona.”
“Of course it is I. Who could have so much business to be in Verona as I have? Of course I am here.”
“But,—but—what has brought you here, Nina?”
“If you do not know I cannot tell you.”
“And Carlo?”