ied to explain what a
base and abominable thing it was that her husband, an honest free
trader between Italy and Switzerland, should have been destroyed by
the slaves in the government vessels beneath, and Jenny nodded and
strove to understand. She was making progress in Italian, though
Assunta's swift tongue and local patois were as yet beyond her
comprehension. But she knew that her dead smuggler husband was the
subject on Assunta's lips and nodded her sympathy.

"Sons of dogs!" cried the widow; then a steep section of their road
reduced her to silence.

The great event of that day, which brought Jenny Doria so violently
back into the tragedy of the past, had yet to happen, and many hours
elapsed before she was confronted with it. The women climbed
presently to a little field of meadow grass that sparkled with tiny
flowers and spread its alpine sward among thickets of mulberry. Here
their work awaited them; but first they ate the eggs and wheaten
bread, walnuts and dried figs that they had brought and shared a
little flask of red wine. They finished with a handful of cherries
and then Assunta began to pluck leaves for her great basket while
Jenny loitered a while and smoked a cigarette. It was a new habit
acquired since her marriage.

Presently she set to work and assisted her companion until they had
gathered a full load of leaves. Then the younger plucked one or two
great golden orange lilies that grew in this little glen, and soon
the women started upon their homeward way. They had descended about
a mile and at a shoulder of Griante sat down to rest in welcome
shadow. Beneath, to the northward, lay their home beside the water
and, gazing down upon the scattered and clustered habitations of
Menaggio, Jenny declared that she saw the red roof of Villa Pianezzo
and the brown of the lofty shed behind, where dwelt her uncle's
silkworms.

Opposite, on its promontory, stood the little township of Bellagio
and behind it flashed the glassy face of Lecco in the cloudless
sunshine. And then, suddenly, as if it had been some apparition
limned upon the air, there stood in the path the figure of a tall
man. His red head was bare and from the face beneath shone a pair of
wild and haggard eyes. They saw the stranger's great tawny
mustache, his tweed garments and knickerbockers, his red waistcoat,
and the cap he carried in his hand.

It was Robert Redmayne. Assunta, who gazed upon him without
understanding, suddenly felt Jen