the two
artillerymen explained what had happened and begged that their officer
might be taken in at once; and, moreover, that the portress would
kindly get some money with which to pay the cabman, as they could only
raise seven sous between them.

The Mother Superior had supposed that there would be many wounded, and
had directed that the orderlies should be ready at the door with
stretchers, although the Convent hospital did not receive accident
cases or casualties except in circumstances of extreme emergency. The
hospital of the Consolazione, close to the Roman Forum, was the proper
place for these, but it was very much farther, and the White Sisters
were so well known in all Trastevere that they were sometimes called
upon, even in the middle of the night, to take in a wounded man who
could not have lived to reach the great hospital beyond the Tiber.

Under the brilliant electric light in the main hall, the Mother
Superior recognised Giovanni's unconscious face; his crushed arm,
hanging down like a doll's, and his torn and soiled uniform, told the
rest. He was taken at once to the room his brother had occupied so
long. The Mother Superior herself helped the surgeon and another
Sister to do all that could be done then. Sister Giovanna knew nothing
of his coming, for she was in the wards, where there was much to be
done. The patients who had fever had been severely affected by the
terrible explosion, and most of them were more or less delirious and
had to be quieted. In the windows that look westward every pane of
glass was broken, though the outer shutters had been closed at sunset,
a few minutes before the catastrophe. There were heaps of broken glass
to be cleared away, and the patients whose beds were now exposed to
draughts were moved. Sister Giovanna, who was not the supervising
nurse for the week, worked quietly and efficiently with the others,
carrying out all directions as they were given; but her heart misgave
her, and when one of the nuns came in and said in a low voice that an
officer from Monteverde had been brought in with his arm badly
crushed, she steadied herself a moment by the foot of an iron
bedstead. In the shaded light of the ward no one noticed her agonised
face.

Presently she was able to ask where the officer was, and the Sister
who had brought the news announced that he was in Number Two. It was
Giovanni now, and not his brother, the unhappy woman was sure of that,
and every instinct in her