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But she was not weak; or at least only weak in the way in which all generous natures are so. On the morrow Nerina was not sped on her way. The old woman, Gianna, thought well of her. "She is as clean as a stone in the water," she said; "she has foul-smelling rags, but her flesh is clean. She woke at dawn, and asked for something to do. She knows nought, but she is willing and teachable.
"Who knows where you will rest to-morrow?" she thought; and she went backwards down the ladder noiselessly so as not to awaken a sleeper, whose awaking might be so sorrowful. Gianna went back to the house and busied herself with her usual tasks; she could hear the voices of Adone and Clelia Alba in the chamber above; they sounded in altercation, but their words she could not hear.
"What he likes to tell, he tells. Prying questions make false tongues. I have never questioned him since he was breeched." "There are not many women like you," had said Gianna, partly in admiration, half in impatience. "Adone is a boy for you and me," had replied his mother. "But for himself and for all others he is a man. We must remember it."
He was walking with spirit and ease, his head was erect, his belt was filled with arms, his eyes had sternness and command in them; he came from one of the military drillings in the woods, and had been content with it. Seeing old Gianna waiting there he understood that something must have happened, and his first fears were for his mother.
It suffices for me that the son of Valeria Albo, my son, has forgot his duty to his mother and his respect for himself." Clelia Alba rose with effort from her chair, relighted her lamp at the old woman's rush candle, and went slowly and heavily up the stairs. She felt stunned and outraged. Her son! hers! to lie out of nights with a little nameless vagrant! Gianna caught hold of her skirt.
As a forest fire sweeps away under its rolling smoke and waves of flame millions of obscure and harmless creatures, so the baneful fires of men's greed and speculations came from afar and laid low these harmless lives with neither thought of them or pity. Later in the day he sent word to Gianna to bring Nernia to the presbytery. They both came, obedient.
The night seemed long to her in the lone stone entrance, with the owls hooting round the house, and the winds blowing loud and tearing the tiles from the roof. Above, in her chamber, Adone's mother walked to and fro all night sleepless. Gianna before it was dawn went out in the hope that she might meet Adone on his return, and be able to speak to him before he could see his mother.
The man, with a significant gesture, drew his sabre up half way out of its sheath; then let it fall again with a clash. He vouchsafed no other answer. Some women's faces pressed in at the grating of the window which looked on the little garden, scared, blanched, horrified, the white head, and sunburnt features of Gianna foremost. "Reverendissimo!" they screamed as with one voice.
Gianna let go her hold and crept submissively down the stair. She set her rushlight on the floor and sat down in the chair beside the door, and told her beads with shaking fingers. One or other of them, she thought, might come home either soon or late, for she did not believe that any amorous intimacy was the reason that they were both out God knew where in this windy, pitch-dark night.
A goatherd who passed some few days later with his flock on his way to the mountains recognised the little girl. "You are Black Fausto's daughter," he said to her. "Is he dead? Eh, well, we must all die. May his soul rest." To Gianna, who questioned him, he said, "Yes, he was a good soul. Often have I seen him down in the Roman plains. He worked himself to death.
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