She soon returned, and said that there was no one in the room.
Feliciana jumped up and rushed into the apartment which Appadocca had occupied. No one had slept on the bed.
The truth now broke in upon the young lady. Her countenance fell; she walked back dejectedly to her chair, and looked out as before.
“What shall I do?” asked the old domestic, who had now a long time waited in vain for the orders of her absent mistress.
Feliciana started: “Tell my papa,” she said, and turned away her head.
The old domestic went slowly and in a side-long manner out of the apartment, gazing at the young lady the whole time, and muttering “what is the matter with the child?”
Feliciana remained where she was the greater part of the day, closed her ears to the repeated exhortations of her old servant to take food, and declared, in answer to her pressing questions, that she had had a disagreeable dream the night before, which had thrown a feeling of melancholy over her the whole of that day. When she retired to her apartment in the evening, the young lady hastily gathered her valuables, and wrote a letter, which she addressed to her father, and sat quietly and pensively until the night was half spent. She then rose, and carefully let herself out of the house, and walked slowly and cautiously away, until she got to a considerable distance from the Rancha. Once in the open field, the bold Feliciana began to run, for it was only by running that she could keep pace with the rapidity and activity of her thoughts. The next day she was by the sea shore, and was just in time to catch a glimpse of the little fallucha which had received Appadocca on board, as she was sailing away. She waved her handkerchief, but no one on board saw her, and the fallucha left her behind.
Undaunted by this accident, the young lady continued her journey along the shore, moving, however, in an easterly direction.
Oppressed with fatigue, she sat for a moment, in the evening, on the grass, to rest herself.
The dull sounds of horses’ hoofs in a short time were distinctly heard.