sent a
message to her mother to the effect that she should not indeed return,
but would never forget that she was her daughter. And, moreover, she
had left behind for her sister Maddalena whom she must have taken
into her confidence, all her clothes and other effects, and a bag of
money--probably from the Captain--so that their mother might want for
nothing.

"That this news should work upon the young village-folk like valerian
upon cats, you, my friend, will easily believe. Had we been in the old
times of Greeks and Trojans, Domenico would easily have assembled an
army to pursue and recover his lost Helen. But in spite of all that was
said and shrieked, spite of fury and curses, nothing came of it, and
soon it seemed as though these braggadocios were ashamed of even
uttering the name of the girl who had refused them all to go off at
last with a heretic and barbarian. There were only two who could not
forget her. I was one, and it was in vain I sought consolation from the
muses. The other was Domenico Il Rosso, in whose eyes anybody with an
insight into human nature might easily have read that he was brooding
over desperate deeds.

"And too surely before a month had elapsed since Erminia's flight all
my fears were realised. I remember the day as tho' it were yesterday:
it was on a Thursday--and the heat was such that the flies on the wall
were giddy, and at noon no Christian soul ventured out. I had closed my
shop-door, and all the shutters, and lay between sleeping and waking in
this very chair where I now sit. There was nothing to be heard but the
sleepy drip-drop of the fountain, and the rustling of dry herbs on the
counter, over which my tame canary-bird was hopping to-and-fro.
Suddenly I fancied I heard some one knock at the shop-door, and call my
name, and annoyed at being disturbed, I rubbed my eyes awake, and
prepared to see whether any one had really been taken suddenly ill. The
knocking was repeated, louder and quicker, as if in urgent haste, and I
had my hand on the door-handle when I heard a dreadful scream, 'Jesus,
Maria, have mercy on me!' I tore open the door, and saw a woman sink on
the threshold, from whose breast there gushed such a stream of blood,
that while I stooped to raise her I was reddened from top to toe. Three
steps off with a face like ashes stood Domenico, with eyes wide-opened
as though his crime had killed him too. 'Domenico,' I cried, 'what hast
thou done? Cursed be thy hand which has