ave gone to eat stewed kid and fried lamb and
hare baked with fennel, when they had only a bit of salt fish and an
onion now and then?

They had admitted the vicar of San Bartolo, once or twice, to visit her,
the jailer standing by, but he had been unable to do more than to weep
with her and assure her of his own perfect belief in her innocence. The
change he found in her shocked him so greatly that he could scarcely
speak; and he thought to himself, as he saw how aged and wasted and
altered she was, if she lose her beauty and grow old before her time,
what avail will it be to her even if they declare her innocent? Her gay
lover will look at her no more.

Falko Melegari loved her wildly, ardently, vehemently indeed; but
Gesualdo, with that acute penetration which sometimes supplies in
delicate natures that knowledge of the world which they lack, felt that
it was not a love which had any qualities in it to withstand the trials
of time or the loss of physical charms. Perchance Generosa herself felt
as much; and the cruel consciousness of it hurt her more than her
prison-bars.

CHAPTER III.

The winter passed away, and with February the corn spread a green carpet
everywhere, the almond-trees blossomed on the hill-sides, the violets
opened the way for the wind-flowers, and the willows budded beside the
water-mill. There were braying of bugles, twanging of lutes, cracking of
shots, drinking of wines on the farms and in the village as a rustic
celebration of Carnival. Not much of it, for times are hard and men's
hearts heavy in these days, and the sunlit grace and airy gayety natural
to it are things forever dead in Italy, like the ilex forests and the
great gardens that have perished for ever and aye.

Lent came, with its church-bells sounding in melancholy iteration over
the March fields, where the daffodils were blowing by millions, and the
parocco of San Bartolo fasted and prayed and mortified his flesh in
every way that his creed allowed, and hoped by such miseries, pains, and
penances to attain grace in heaven, if not on earth, for Generosa in her
misery. All through Lent he wearied the ear of God with incessant
supplication for her.

Day and night he racked his brain to discover any evidence as to who the
assassin had been. He never once doubted her: if the very apostles and
saints of his Church had all descended on earth to witness against her,
he would have cried to them that she was innocent.

The s