bout
_you_.'

'About _me_?' said Gerald, blushing deeply.

'Yes. It was a whim--(I am the slave of such caprices)--seized me to
learn how you came among the Jesuit brothers, and why you left them.'

'I thought I had told you why myself,' said the youth proudly.

'So you had; but I am one of those who can only build on the foundation
their own hands have laid, and so I went myself to learn your history.'

'And has the journey rewarded your exertions?' said the boy, half
mockingly.

A sudden start, and a look of almost savage ferocity on Gabriel's
features, made Gerald tremble for his own rashness; and then, with a
measured voice, he repeated the boy's words:

'The journey _has_ rewarded my exertions.'

'May I venture to ask what you have discovered?' said Gerald timidly.

'I went to satisfy my own curiosity, not yours, boy. What I have learned
may suffice for the one, and not for the other. Here comes Pippo with
pleasanter tidings than all this gossip,' said he, rising, and entering
the house.

'Won't you come in and have a bit of supper with us, Gerald?' asked
Pippo kindly.

'No, I cannot eat,' said the boy, as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

'Come and taste a glass of the generous Orvieto, however.'

'No, Pippo; I could not swallow it,' said he, in a half-choking voice.

'Ah!' muttered the old man with a sigh, 'Signor Gabriel's talk rarely
makes one relish the meal they wait for,' and with bent-down head he
re-entered the house.

The feeling Gerald had long experienced toward Gabriel was one of fear,
almost verging upon terror. There was about the man's look, his voice,
his manner, something that portended danger. Do what he would, the boy
never could make his sense of gratitude rise superior to his fear. He
tried, over and over again, to think of him only as one who had saved
his life, and to whom he owed all the present comforts he enjoyed; but
above these thoughts there triumphed a terrible dread of the man, and a
strange, mysterious belief that he possessed a sort of control over his
destiny.

'If it were indeed so,' muttered he to himself, 'and that his shadow
were to be over me through life, I 'd curse the day he carried me from
the shore of the Lagoscuro!'

Night was rapidly closing in, and the dreary landscape was every moment
growing sadder and drearier. As the sun sank beneath the hills the heavy
exhalations began to well up from the damp earth, till a bluish haze of
vapour rested ove