, no doubt she was not the only woman
whose existence annoyed him; it was most probably that he was at enmity
with all women. I watched him pityingly as he searched among the
worn-out garments which were his stock-in-trade, and wondered why
Death, so active in smiting down the strongest in the city, should have
thus cruelly passed by this forlorn wreck of human misery, for whom the
grave would have surely been a most welcome release and rest. He turned
round at last with an exulting gesture.

"I have found it!" he exclaimed. "The very thing to suit you. Your are
perhaps a coral-fisher? You will like a fisherman's dress. Here is one,
red sash, cap and all, in beautiful condition! He that wore it was
about your height it will fit you as well as it fitted him, and, look
you! the plague is not in it, the sea has soaked through and through
it; it smells of the sand and weed."

He spread out the rough garb before me. I glanced at it carelessly.

"Did the former wearer kill HIS wife'" I asked, with a slight smile.

The old rag-picker shook his head and made a sign with his outspread
fingers expressive of contempt.

"Not he!--He was a fool--He killed himself"

"How was that? By accident or design?"

"Che! Che! He knew very well what he was doing. It happened only two
months since. It was for the sake of a black-eyed jade, she lives and
laughs all day long up at Sorrento. He had been on a long voyage, he
brought her pearls for her throat and coral pins for her hair. She had
promised to marry him. He had just landed, he met her on the quay, he
offered her the pearl and coral trinkets. She threw them back and told
him she was tired of him. Just that--nothing more. He tried to soften
her; she raged at him like a tiger-cat. Yes, I was one of the little
crowd that stood round them on the quay, I saw it all. Her black eyes
flashed, she stamped and bit her lips at him, her full bosom heaved as
though it would burst her laced bodice. She was only a market-girl, but
she gave herself the airs of a queen. 'I am tired of you!' she said to
him. 'Go! I wish to see you no more.' He was tall and well-made, a
powerful fellow; but he staggered, his face grew pale, his lips
quivered. He bent his head a little--turned--and before any hand could
stop him he sprung from the edge of the quay into the waves, they
closed over his head, for he did not try to swim; he just sunk down,
down, like a stone. Next day his body came ashore, and I bought h