was--as she might see---some poor wounded fellow.

"Wounded?" she echoed, and her glorious eyes grew very pitiful. "And
alone?"

"There was a gentleman here, tending him, Madonna; but he is gone with
Fra Domenico to the Convent of Acquasparta to seek the necessaries to
mend his shoulder."

"Poor gentleman," she murmured, approaching the fallen figure. "How came
he by his hurt?"

"That, Madonna, is more than I can tell."

"Can we do nothing for him until his friends return?" was her next
question, bending over the Count as she spoke. "Come, Peppino," she
cried, "lend me your aid. Get me water from the brook, yonder."

The fool looked about him for a vessel, and his eye falling upon the
Count's capacious hat, he snatched it up, and went his errand. When he
returned, the lady was kneeling with the unconscious man's head in her
lap. Into the hatful of water that Peppe brought her she dipped a
kerchief, and with this she bathed the brow on which his long black hair
lay matted and disordered.

"See how he has bled, Peppe," said she. "His doublet is drenched, and he
is bleeding still! Vergine Santa!" she cried, beholding now the ugly
wound that gaped in his shoulder, and turning pale at the sight.
"Assuredly he will die of it--and he so young, Peppino, and so comely to
behold!"