Mrs. Burgoyne drew her chair nearer to the Contessa. Silently and timidly she laid a hand upon her knee.
'I can't understand,' she said in a low voice, 'how you have had the patience to be kind to us, these last weeks!'
'Do you know why?' said the Contessa, turning round upon her, and no longer attempting to conceal the tears upon her fine old face.
'No—tell me!'
'It was because Emilio loved the English. He once spent a very happy summer in England. I—I don't know whether he was in love with anyone. But, at any rate, he looked back to it with deep feeling. He always did everything that he could for any English person—and especially in these wilds. I have known him often take trouble that seemed to me extravagant or quixotic. But he always would. And when I saw you in the Sassetto that day, I knew exactly what he would have done. You looked so delicate—and I remembered how rough the convent was. I had hardly spoken to anybody but Teresa since the news came, but I could not help speaking to you.'
Eleanor pressed her hand. After a pause she said gently:
'He was with General Da Bormida?'
'Yes—he was with Da Bormida. There were three columns, you remember. He was with the column that seemed for a time to be successful. I only got the full account last week from a brother-officer, who was a prisoner till the end of June. Emilio, like all the rest, thought the position was carried—that it was a victory. He raised his helmet and shouted, Viva il Re! Viva l'Italia! And then all in a moment the Scioans were on them like a flood. They were all carried away. Emilio rallied his men again and again under a hail of bullets. Several heard him say: "Courage, lads—courage! Your Captain dies with you! Avanti! avanti! Viva l'Italia!" Then at last he was frightfully wounded, and perhaps you may have heard in the village'—again the mother turned her face away—' that he said to a caporale beside him, who came from this district, whom he knew at home—"Federigo, take your gun and finish it." He was afraid—my beloved!—of falling into the hands of the enemy. Already they had passed some wounded, horribly mutilated. The caporale refused. "I can't do that, Eccellenza," he said; "but we will transport you or die with you!" Then again there was a gleam of victory. He thought the enemy were repulsed. A brother-officer saw him being carried along by two soldiers, and Emilio beckoned to him. "You must be my Confessor!" he said, smiling. And he gave him some messages for me and Teresa—some directions about his affairs. Then he asked: "It is victory—isn't it? We have won, after all?" And the other—who knew—couldn't bear to tell him the truth. He said, "Yes." And Emilio said, "You swear it?" "I swear." And the boy made the sign of the cross—said again, Viva l'Italia!—and died…. They buried him that night under a little thicket. My God! I thank Thee that he did not lie on that accursed plain!'
She raised her handkerchief to hide her trembling lips. Eleanor said nothing. Her face was bowed upon her hands, which lay on the Contessa's knee.
'His was not a very happy temperament,' said the poor mother presently.' He was always anxious and scrupulous. I sometimes thought he had been too much influenced by Leopardi; he was always quoting him. That is the way with many of our young men. Yet Emilio was a Christian—a sincere believer. It would have been better if he had married. But he gave all his affection to me and Teresa—and to this place and the people. I was to carry on his work—but I am an old woman—and very tired. Why should the young go before their time?… Yet I have no bitterness about the war. It was a ghastly mistake—and it has humiliated us as a nation. But nations are made by their blunderings as much as by their successes. Emilio would not have grudged his life. He always thought that Italy had been "made too quick," as they say—that our day of trial and weakness was not done…. But, Gesù mio!—if he had not left me so much of life.'