Still no answer.
"Luisa!" the young man said softly. Reproach, grief, passion, all these were in his appeal. Luisa's hands, that had never once paused in their work, now became still. She murmured:
"I no longer feel anything. I am like a stone."
Franco turned faint. He kissed his wife on her hair, said good-bye, and then entered the alcove, where, kneeling beside the little bed, he threw his arms across it, recalling his treasure's little voice: "One kiss more, papa!" A paroxysm of weeping assailed him, but he controlled himself, and hurriedly left the room.
In the hall his friends were impatiently awaiting his return. How could they start? They did not know the way. The lawyer was, indeed, acquainted with the Boglia road, but was that the best way to go if they wished to avoid the guards? On hearing that Franco was going to Cressogno they were filled with amazement, and Pedraglio gave vent to his indignation, saying it was shameful to forsake his friends in this fashion, when they were in trouble. When the prefect realised how matters stood he took Pedraglio's part, and offered to explain Franco's absence to his grandmother, and proposed that Franco should write a line or two, which he himself would carry to Cressogno. But Franco was convinced that his Maria wished him to take this step, and he would not yield. He suddenly remembered that the prefect was as familiar as a hare with all the mountain paths. "You go!" said he, addressing the priest. "You accompany them!" The prefect was about to reply that perhaps the Signora Marchesa might need him, when the lawyer exclaimed: "Hush! Look there!"
Directly in front of the house, where the shadow of Monte Bisgnago lay obliquely upon the rippling water, a boat had stopped. Franco recognised the customs-guards' launch.
"I am willing to wager those hogs are watching for us," Pedraglio murmured. "They are afraid we shall escape by boat. Anyway, they are on the lookout."
"Hush!" the lawyer repeated, approaching the window that overlooked the church-place.
All held their breath in silence.
"Children," said V., turning quickly from the window, "we are done for!" Franco went to the window, and saw a solitary figure running towards the house. He concluded the lawyer had given a false alarm, but the man—it was he who went by the nickname of "the hunted hare," and who knew and saw everything—flung two words upwards as he passed beneath the window: "The police!" At the same moment they heard the noise of many feet. "Come with me! You also, Prefect!" cried Franco, and the others following, he made for the little courtyard between the house and the hillside, and, passing through a woodshed, reached the short cut that leads to Albogasio Superiore. It was so dark that no one noticed a customs-guard, standing, carbine in hand, not two steps from the door of the wood-shed. Fortunately this guard, a certain Filippini, from Busto, was an honest fellow, who ate the bread of Austria unwillingly, and simply because he could find no other. "Be quick!" said he in an undertone. "Cut across the fields, and then take the Boglia road! The path below the Madonnina on the left." Franco thanked the man, and, with his companions, started up the steep path that comes out on the narrow communal road of Albogasio Superiore. Half-way up they all jumped into a field of maize on the right, and stopped to listen. They heard steps on the stairs leading upwards from the church-place, and then on the path where the guard was posted. Evidently the police wished to make sure that all the exits were well guarded. The four crawled swiftly away through the maize, and on reaching the spot below a great boulder called "Lori's Rock," they stopped to hold a consultation. They might take the path that comes out on the Albogasio road at the very door of Pasotti's garden, and then climb up from field to field, as far as the Boglia road. But the path would be hard to find at this hour, and fearing to lose too much time, they determined to make for the stairway that leads up from Albogasio Inferiore to Puttini's house, then, leaving Casa Puttini on the right, they could reach the Boglia road in no time. It was already less dark. In one way this was a disadvantage, but at least it would enable them to find their way through that labyrinth of small fields and low walls. All were silent. Only Pedraglio would utter an oath in Milanese from time to time, as he stumbled over a stone or scratched his hands on a hedge. Then the others would hush him. They reached the narrow stairway preceded by the prefect, who jumped walls and hedges like a squirrel. When they were all together on the stairs Franco withdrew from the group. On the Boglia road they would not need him; he was going to Cressogno. In vain Pedraglio seized him by the arm, in vain the prefect implored him not to expose himself to certain arrest, and probable imprisonment. He believed he was obeying Maria's voice, and felt that he was acting according to the dictates of conscience. He tore himself from Pedraglio, and disappeared up the stairs, for he did not wish to go to Cressogno by way of S. Mamette—that would be too dangerous.