ng him something."

So Tessa set out in the morning towards the great Piazza where the
bonfire was to be. She did not think the February breeze cold enough to
demand further covering than her green woollen dress. A mantle would
have been oppressive, for it would have hidden a new necklace and a new
clasp, mounted with silver, the only ornamental presents Tito had ever
made her. Tessa did not think at all of showing her figure, for no one
had ever told her it was pretty; but she was quite sure that her
necklace and clasp were of the prettiest sort ever worn by the richest
contadina, and she arranged her white hood over her head so that the
front of her necklace might be well displayed. These ornaments, she
considered, must inspire respect for her as the wife of some one who
could afford to buy them.

She tripped along very cheerily in the February sunshine, thinking much
of the purchases for the little ones, with which she was to fill her
small basket, and not thinking at all of any one who might be observing
her. Yet her descent from her upper storey into the street had been
watched, and she was being kept in sight as she walked by a person who
had often waited in vain to see if it were not Tessa who lived in that
house to which he had more than once dogged Tito. Baldassarre was
carrying a package of yarn: he was constantly employed in that way, as a
means of earning his scanty bread, and keeping the sacred fire of
vengeance alive; and he had come out of his way this morning, as he had
often done before, that he might pass by the house to which he had
followed Tito in the evening. His long imprisonment had so intensified
his timid suspicion and his belief in some diabolic fortune favouring
Tito, that he had not dared to pursue him, except under cover of a crowd
or of the darkness; he felt, with instinctive horror, that if Tito's
eyes fell upon him, he should again be held up to obloquy, again be
dragged away his weapon would be taken from him, and he should be cast
helpless into a prison-cell. His fierce purpose had become as stealthy
as a serpent's, which depends for its prey on one dart of the fang.
Justice was weak and unfriended; and he could not hear again the voice
that pealed the promise of vengeance in the Duomo; he had been there
again and again, but that voice, too, had apparently been stifled by
cunning strong-armed wickedness. For a long while, Baldassarre's ruling
thought was to ascertain whether