He now threw himself on the hard bed and felt the storm raging within him. A few minutes, and he raised one foot about to hasten out and tell her that he had hurt her only that he might heal her; then he stamped on the ground, vexed at such effeminate weakness. “It is the one thing that remains,” he said to himself, “if crimes and misfortunes are to increase no more. Seven years, poor child!” A heavy comb, decorated with little pieces of metal, lay on a small table; he took it up mechanically in his hand. This brought to mind again the abundance of her hair, the proud neck on which it rested, the noble forehead round which it curled, and the browned cheeks. Then he threw the tempter into the trunk, where he saw the neat dresses, kerchiefs for the head, and bits of finery of all sorts, folded together carefully and in order. Slowly he let the lid fall again, and then went to the hole in the wall and looked out.
The room lay in the rear of the house, so that none of the other huts of Treppi obstructed his view over the chasm-cleft highlands. Opposite, stretching behind the ravine, was the naked ridge of rocks, bathed in the moon that must now be standing directly over the house. At one side he saw a few sheds, past which a path ran down into the abyss. A forlorn little pine tree, with bare twigs, was trying to take root among the stones; besides this only heather covered the ground, with here and there some pitiable little bush. “Surely,” said he in the stillness, “this is not a place in which to forget what one has loved. I would it were otherwise! Yes, yes, she who has loved me more than finery and flirting and the whispering of cox-combs would be the right wife for me, after all. What eyes would my old Marco make if he saw me suddenly return from my journey with a beautiful wife. Not once would we need to change our abode; and how unhomelike are the innumerable corners of solitude! And it would be good for me, at times—an old grumbler, a laughing child—but folly, folly, Filippo! What would the poor thing do as a widow in Bologna! No, no, none of that! No new sins added to the old mass! I will rise an hour before the others, and steal out and away before a soul in Treppi awakes.”
He was about to turn from the window to stretch his form on the bed, worn out from the long ride, when he saw a womanly figure move out from the shadow of the house into the moonlight. She did not look round, but in his mind there was no doubt that it was Fenice. With quiet steps and long, she turned from the house in the direction of the path that led down into the ravine. A shudder crept over him, for at the same moment the suspicion entered his mind that she intended to harm herself. Without a moment’s thought he sprang to the door and tore violently at the bolt. But the old rusty iron had imbedded itself so stubbornly in the clamps that in vain he used every effort. A cold sweat stood on his brow; he shouted, shook, and pounded against the door with fists and feet, but could not force it. At length he gave over and rushed back to the window hole. The stone was already yielding to his fury when suddenly he saw again the figure of the young girl rise on the path and wind its way toward the hut. She was carrying something in her hand, which by the uncertain light he could not make out, only her face he saw distinctly; it was earnest and thoughtful, but without passion. Not a look did she cast toward his window, and again she disappeared into shadow, while he stood there, breathing heavily from anxiety and exertion. He heard a distinct noise, which seemed to come from the direction of the old dog, but it was neither bark nor whine. The mystery oppressed him uncomfortably. He leaned his head far out of the opening, but nothing was he conscious of save the still night in the mountains. All at once sounded a short, sharp cry, followed by the heart-rending moan of the dog, and then long and anxiously he listened; not another sound the whole night long, save once when the door of the neighboring chamber slammed and Fenice’s step could be heard on the stone floor. In vain he stood for long at the bolted door, listening, questioning, imploring the girl for one short word. All was quiet next to him. He now threw himself on the bed, as in a fever, and lay there watching and thinking, until at last a few hours before midnight the moon sank and weariness became lord of his thousand fluctuating thoughts. As sleep left him, a twilight surrounded Filippo; yet when his mind was fully awake and he had raised himself in bed, he became aware that it was not like the twilight that comes before sunrise. From one side there stole toward him a feeble ray of sunlight, and he soon noticed that the hole in the wall which he had left open before he went to sleep had now become stuffed with brushwood. He pulled it out and the full morning sun blinded him. In highest wrath at the contrabbandieri, his sleep, and most of all at the young girl to whom he attributed this piece of trickery, he went instantly to the door, whose bolt now easily gave way to a moderate push, and entered the neighboring room.
He met Fenice alone, left sitting at the hearth as if she had been long expecting him. From her face had vanished every trace of yesterday’s storm, not one motion of the sorrow, not so much as a line of her violent self-control met his dark eyes.
“You have managed well that I should sleep away the hours,” he said sharply.
“Yes,” she said, indifferently. “You were tired out. You will arrive in Pistoja early enough, if you do not have to meet the murderers until the afternoon.”
“I did not ask you to concern yourself about my weariness. Are you still going to force yourself upon me? It will do you no good, girl. Where are my men?”
“Gone.”
“Gone? Do you intend to make a fool of me? Where are they? Silly woman, as if they would go without being paid!” And he strode hastily toward the door, about to go out.
But Fenice remained sitting motionless, and kept speaking in the same even tone: “I have paid them. I told them that you needed sleep and that I would accompany you down there myself; it happens that the supply of wine has given out and I must buy new, an hour this side of Pistoja.”