She rode on, carrying an indistinct idea, gained from the huge captions, of a situation with which the Government found itself all but powerless to cope; of anarchy in Milan, of hundreds of men and women laid low or killed by the troops; but the announcement that loomed above all to her mind was that Mario Forza had been shot. “At this hour,” ran the account, “exact details are not obtainable. From what could be gathered concerning the deplorable incident, it appears that the mob in Cathedral Square was at the time stampeding before the charge of a detachment of the Ninth Cavalry. A woman whose name could not be learned, but who is said to be one of the rioters, was knocked down in the mad rush and would have been trampled to death by the horses but for the timely appearance and intrepid action of the Honourable Forza. He sprang in front of the advancing troopers, and catching up the woman in his arms was bearing her out of harm’s way, when a shot, evidently intended for the soldiers, was fired by one of the mob. The mark that the bullet found was Signor Forza. It was not known, however, that he was struck until he had borne the woman to a point of safety. Then he was seen to sway as if swooning, but some bystanders steadied him. He was conveyed to the General Hospital by a friend whose carriage stood by.” Her instinct to go to him became a mastering purpose. Although she did no more than walk her horse for a while, she kept moving toward Milan. She reflected that the remaining distance was little more than two leagues and that she could travel it easily before dark. In a minute she was resolved, and speaking to her horse she set forward at a smarter pace. For the proprieties of the case she was in no mood to borrow care. He was wounded, perhaps unto death, and her one thought was to go to the hospital and be at his side. As she pursued her way, now in the sunshine of open road, now in the shade of a wood, she had time to consider what idle tongues might say, but it did not make her slacken speed or think of turning back. On every hand her eye met evidence of the social recoil that had set in. Here, as in the neighbourhood of her father’s house, the farm labourers had been caught in the wave of revolt that surged from Milan. All the fields she passed were deserted. The taverns of the roadside were busy, and, however true the cry of bread famine may have been, there was no famine in juice of the grape and no scarcity of drinkers. In the village of Bosco Largo she heard again the name of Mario Forza. It fell from the lips of an impassioned ploughman haranguing a crowd of excited men and women. Two stern-visaged carbineers stood by, but their presence only fanned the flame of his speech.