is voice
beat against the rocks undoubted.

She saw that a frenzy had seized him. He looked with eyes drained of
human objects; standing square, with stiff half-dropped arms, and an
intense melody of wretchedness in his voice.

'Rinaldo, Rinaldo!' he shouted: 'Clelia!--no answer from man or ghost.
She is dead. We two said to her die! and she died. Therefore she is
silent, for the dead have not a word. Oh! Milan, Milan! accursed
betraying city! I should have found my work in you if you had kept faith.
Now here am I, talking to the strangled throat of this place, and can get
no answer. Where am I? The world is hollow: the miserable shell! They
lied. Battle and slaughter they promised me, and enemies like ripe maize
for the reaping-hook. I would have had them in thick to my hands. I would
have washed my hands at night, and eaten and drunk and slept, and sung
again to work in the morning. They promised me a sword and a sea to
plunge it in, and our mother Italy to bless me. I would have toiled: I
would have done good in my life. I would have bathed my soul in our
colours. I would have had our flag about my body for a winding-sheet, and
the fighting angels of God to unroll me. Now here am I, and my own pale
mother trying at every turn to get in front of me. Have her away! It's a
ghost, I know. She will be touching the strength out of me. She is not
the mother I love and I serve. Go: cherish your daughter, you dead
woman!'

Angelo reeled. 'A spot of blood has sent me mad,' he said, and caught for
a darkness to cross his sight, and fell and lay flat.

Vittoria looked around her; her courage was needed in that long silence.

She adopted his language: 'Our mother Italy is waiting for us. We must
travel on, and not be weary. Angelo, my friend, lend me your help over
these stones.'

He rose quietly. She laid her elbow on his hand; thus supported she left
a place that seemed to shudder. All the heavy day they walked almost
silently; she not daring to probe his anguish with a question; and he
calm and vacant as the hour following thunder. But, of her safety by his
side she had no longer a doubt. She let him gather weeds and grasses, and
bind them across her feet, and perform friendly services, sure that
nothing earthly could cause such a mental tempest to recur. The
considerate observation which at all seasons belongs to true courage told
her that it was not madness afflicting Angelo.

Near nightfall they came upon a forester