im at his ease; and indeed
it was only now that he began to feel the peculiar constraint of his
position. To Andreoni his explanation of Fulvia's flight had seemed
natural enough; but on the subsequent stages of their journey she must
pass for his mistress or his wife, and he hardly knew in what spirit she
would take the misapprehensions that must inevitably arise.

At Mestre their carriage waited, and they drove rapidly toward Padua
through the waning night. Andreoni, in his concern for Fulvia's safety,
had prepared for her reception a little farm-house of his wife's, in a
vineyard beyond the town; and here at daybreak it was almost a relief to
Odo to commit his charge to the Signora Andreoni's care.

The day was spent indoors, and Andreoni having thought it more prudent
to bring no servant from Padua, his wife prepared the meals for their
guests and the bookseller drew a jar of his own wine from the cellar.
Fulvia kept to herself during the day; but at dusk she surprised Odo by
entering the room with a trayful of plates and glasses, and helping
their hostess to set out the supper-table. The few hours of rest had
restored to her not only the serenity of the convent, but a lightness of
step and glance that Odo had not seen in her since the early days of
their friendship. He marvelled to see how the first breath of freedom
had set her blood in motion and fanned her languid eye; but he could not
suppress the accompanying thought that his own presence had failed to
work such miracles.

They had planned to ride that night to a little village in the hills
beyond Vicenza, where Fulvia's foster-mother, a peasant of the
Vicentine, lived with her son, who was a vine-dresser; and supper was
hardly over when they were told that their horses waited. Their kind
hosts dared not urge them to linger; and after a hurried farewell they
rode forth into the fresh darkness of the September night.

The new moon was down and they had to thread their way slowly through
the stony lanes between the vineyards. At length they gained the open
country, and growing more accustomed to the darkness put their horses to
a trot. The change of pace, and the exhilaration of traversing an
unknown country in the hush and mystery of night, combined to free their
spirits, and Odo began to be aware that the barrier between them was
lifted. To the charm of their intercourse at Santa Chiara was added that
closer sympathy produced by the sense of isolation. They