He was to bring back an answer if there was any; and when he was gone, as he had not finished his job, she took the scrubbing broom in her small hands and finished it herself, with more energy, perhaps, than had been expended upon the stones for some time.

Before she had quite done, the portress caught sight of her and was filled with horror.
'For the love of heaven!' she cried, trying to take the broom herself.
The nun would not let it go, however, and pushed her aside gently, with a smile.
'If any one should see your Reverence!' protested the portress.
'My dear Anna,' answered the Mother Superior, giving the finishing strokes, 'they would see an old woman washing a doorstep, and no harm would be done.' But the example remained impressed on the good lay sister's mind for ever, and to her last days she will never tire of telling the novices how the Mother Superior washed the doorstep of the hospital herself on the morning after the explosion at Monteverde.
The delivery of the report produced a more immediate result than either Giovanni or the Mother had expected.

The accident had happened near sunset, and the story of Giovanni's heroic behaviour had been repeated everywhere before midnight.

The men who had found him had, of course, reported the fact after the first confusion was over, but it was some time before the news got up to any superior officer, though the King's aide-de-camp had left instructions that any information about Giovanni was to be telephoned to the Quirinal at once.

When it had been understood at last that he was in the private hospital of the White Sisters, badly injured but alive, it was too late to think of sending an officer to make inquiries in person.