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Assunta's object, of course, was to break the match with the Marchese di Castelmare for the sake of bringing on one with the Duca di San Sisto. Violante's object, it has been said, was to avoid any marriage at all specially that immediately proposed to her; and the stories, which from time to time Assunta brought her of the goings on of Ludovico, had a double interest for Violante.
But the traveller was weary and, after one of Assunta's famous omelettes and three glasses of white wine, he declared that he must retire and sleep as long as nature ordained slumber. He spoke before the listening Giuseppe, but addressed his remarks to Brendon. "I'm exceedingly short of rest," he said. "Whether I have done the least good by my inquiries remains to be seen. To be frank, I doubt it.
"Now I know," said Daphne, after she had stood for half an hour under the smoke-browned walls of the kitchen watching Assunta's manipulation of eggs and flour, the long kneading, the rolling out of a thin layer of dough, with the final cutting into thin strips; "to make Sunday and festal-day macaroni you take all the eggs there are, and mix them up with flour, and do all that to it; and then you boil it on the stove, and make a sauce for it out of everything there is in the house, bits of tomato, and parsley, and onion, and all kinds of meat.
The elder tried to explain what a base and abominable thing it was that her husband, an honest free trader between Italy and Switzerland, should have been destroyed by the slaves in the government vessels beneath, and Jenny nodded and strove to understand. She was making progress in Italian, though Assunta's swift tongue and local patois were as yet beyond her comprehension.
Her thoughts were wholly with Albert Redmayne and, as she told him when she met him, it remained for him to consider the significance of this event and determine what steps should be taken for his own safety. He was at Bellagio when she reached home, and his manservant, Assunta's brother, Ernesto, explained that Mr.
Place had been made for them among the grape baskets, and they sat on folded blankets, Assunta's face wearing the expression of one who was a captive indeed, the Signorina's shining with simple happiness and somewhat stained by grapes.
She paled and grew thin, her eyes looked preternaturally large and solemn, and she was very easily wearied. I called Assunta's attention to these signs of ill-health; she replied that she had spoken to the countess, but that "madam" had taken no notice of the child's weakly condition.
Daphne disappeared from the railing, and a minute later was at Assunta's side. "Come, come, come!" she cried, pulling her by the lilac apron. "Our time is brief, and we must gather rosebuds while we may. I am young and you are old, and neither of us has any time to lose."
The rapid Italian of excited moments Daphne never pretended to understand, consequently she gathered from Assunta's incoherent words neither names nor impressions, only the bare fact that a caller for the Countess Accolanti had rung the bell. "He inquired, too, for the Signorina," remarked the peasant woman finally, when her breath had nearly given out. "Do you know him?" asked Daphne.
He went next day to old Assunta's funeral, and laid his hand on Dino's shoulder as the boy was turning disconsolately from his grandmother's grave. "My child," he said, gently, "you are alone." "Yes, Father," said Dino, with a stifled sob. "Will you come with me to the monastery? I think we can find you a home. You have nowhere to go, poor child, and you will be weary and hungry before long.
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