"No; never since that time."

"Nor Isidoro Pane either," said Giovanna in a dull voice.

"I thought I saw him go by here yesterday evening," said Aunt Martina.

Giovanna raised her head quickly, but she did not speak, and Brontu laughingly remarked that he supposed she did not stand in any particular need of leeches just at present.

"Well," said Aunt Martina at length, "didn't you bring me anything from Nuoro? You keep one a long time in suspense!" They had, in fact, brought her an ap.r.o.n, but Aunt Bachissia feigned surprise and mortification. "Of course," said she, "we had forgotten for the moment----" And she gave a shrill laugh, but sobered down instantly on observing that Giovanna took no part in these pleasantries, and seemed unable to shake off her melancholy.

"No, no; we never thought about it, but Giovanna will show you a few trifles that we bought----"

Giovanna got up, lighted a candle, and went into the adjoining room, Brontu's ardent gaze following her. Aunt Martina sat waiting for her present. Several moments pa.s.sed and Giovanna did not return.

"What is she doing in there?" asked Brontu.

"Who knows?"

Another minute elapsed.

"I am going to see," he said, jumping up and walking towards the door.

"No, no; what are you thinking of?" said Aunt Bachissia, but so faint-heartedly that Aunt Martina--scandalised--called to her son to come back with energetic: "Zss--zss----"

Brontu, however, paying no attention, tiptoed to the door. Giovanna was standing before an open drawer, re-reading a letter which she had found slipped underneath the door when they got home that day. It was a heartbroken appeal from Costantino. In his round, unformed characters he implored her for the last time not to do this thing that she was about to do. He reminded her of the far-away time of their early love; he promised to come back; he a.s.sured her solemnly of his innocence. "If you have no pity for me," the letter concluded, "at least have some for yourself, for your own soul. Remember the mortal sin: remember eternity!"

Ah, the same words that Aunt Porredda had used; the very same, the very same! Uncle Isidoro must have slipped the letter in while they were away. How long it had been since they had had any direct news of the prisoner! The tears rushed to her eyes, but what moved her were probably more the memories of the past than any thoughts of that eternal future.

Suddenly she heard the door being pushed softly open, and some one stealing in behind her. Leaning quickly over, she began to rummage in the drawer, with trembling hands and misty eyes.

Brontu stood directly behind her with outstretched arms, he clasped her around the shoulders, and she, pretending to be frightened, began to tremble.

"What is it? What are you doing?" he asked in a low, broken voice.

"Oh! I am looking--looking--the ap.r.o.n we got for your mother--I don't know what I have done with it. Let me go, let me go," she said, trying to free herself from his embrace. Close to her face she saw his white teeth gleaming between the full, smiling lips, as red and l.u.s.trous as two ripe cherries; then, suddenly, she felt his hand behind her head, and those two burning lips were pressed close to her own in a kiss that was like the blast from a fiery furnace.

"Ah!" she panted. "We have forgotten eternity!"

A little later she was seated once more in her place by the fire, laughing with all the abandonment of a happy child; while Brontu regarded her with the same look in his eyes that he had when he had been drinking.

The winter pa.s.sed by. Costantino's friends never abandoned their efforts to break off the accursed match, but in vain. The Dejases and Eras were like people bewitched, and remained deaf alike to prayers, threats, and innuendoes. The syndic, even the syndic, a pale and haughty personage who resembled Napoleon I., was against this "devil's marriage," and when Brontu and Giovanna came to him in great secrecy to have it published, he treated them with the utmost contempt, spitting on the ground all the time they were there.

When the question of the divorce had first been mooted, people talked and wondered, but nothing more; then, when it was said that Brontu and Giovanna were in love with each other, there was general disapproval, yet at bottom the community was not ill-pleased to have such a fruitful theme to gossip about; but when there was talk of a marriage!--then every one said it was simply and purely an impossibility. The neighbours laughed, and rather hoped that Brontu was amusing himself at the expense of the Eras. After that, had the young people merely lived together in "mortal sin" probably nothing more would have been said, and people would have ceased to laugh and thought no more about it. It would not have been the first time that such a thing had occurred, nor was it likely to be the last; and Giovanna could cite her youth and poverty by way of excuse. But--_marry_ a woman who already had a husband! _marry_ her! That was a thing not to be stood! What would you have? People are made that way. And then the disgrace and scandal of it! Why, it was a sin, a horrible sin, and it was feared that G.o.d might punish the entire community for the fault of these two. There were even threats of making a demonstration on the marriage day--whistling, stone-throwing, and beating the bride and bridegroom. When rumours of these things reached their ears Brontu became very angry. Aunt Bachissia said: "Leave them to me!" and Aunt Martina threw up her head with the movement of a war-horse when it scents the smell of the first volley.

Ah! she would rather like to fight and--win. She was beginning to feel old, she was tired of work, and well pleased at the prospect of having a strong servant in the house without wages. Moreover, she liked Giovanna, and Brontu wanted her, and so people might burst with envy if they chose.

On the evening of the day when the marriage was published, Uncle Isidoro Pane was working hard in his miserable hut by the brilliant, ruddy light of a large fire. This was the one luxury which Uncle Isidoro was able to allow himself--a good fire--since he collected his wood from the fields, the river-banks, and the forests. During the winter his chief occupation was weaving cord out of horsehair; he knew, in fact, how to do a little of almost everything,--spin, sew, cook (when there was anything to cook), patch shoes,--and yet he had never been able to escape from dire poverty.

Suddenly the door was thrown open; there was a momentary glimpse of the March sky--not stormy, but overcast--and Giacobbe Dejas silently seated himself beside the fire.

The fisherman's kitchen looked like one of those pictures of Flemish interiors, where the figures are thrown out in a ruddy glow against a dark background. By the uncertain light, a grey spider-web could be dimly discerned, with the spider in the middle; in the corner near the hearth, a gla.s.s jug filled to the brim with water in which black leeches swam about; a yellow basket against the wall; and finally the figures of the two men and the black hair cord, its loose ends held between the bony, red fingers of the old fisherman.

"And how goes it now?" asked Giacobbe.

"How goes it now? How does it go now?" repeated the old man. "I don't know."

"Well, it's been published," said Giacobbe more as though he were talking to himself. "The thing is actually done! The drunkard never even came near the pastures to-day, so I just took myself off as well. They may steal his sheep if they want to; I don't care; here I am, and something has got to be done, Isidoro Pane! Hi! Isidoro Pane! leave that cord alone and listen to me. Some--thing--has--got--to--be--done----Do you hear me?"

"Yes, I hear you; but what is there to do? We have done all we can--implored, expostulated, threatened----The syndic has interfered, the clerk. Priest Elias----"

"Oh, Priest Elias! What did he do? Talked to them with sugar in his mouth! He should have threatened them; he should have said: 'I'll take the Holy Books and I'll curse you! I'll excommunicate you; you shall never be able to satisfy your hunger, nor to quench your thirst, nor to have any peace; you shall live in a h.e.l.l upon earth!' Ah, then you would have seen some result! But no, he is a dunce--a warm-milk priest; and he has not done his duty. Don't speak of him to me, it makes me angry."

Isidoro laid down the cord: "It's of no use to get angry," said he.

"Priest Elias has no business with threats, and he has not used them; but never fear, excommunication will fall on that house all the same!"

"Well, I am going to leave them; yes, I am going away. I'll eat no more of their accursed bread!" said Giacobbe with a look expressive of his loathing and disgust. "But before going, I should like to have the pleasure of administering a sound thrashing to those favourites of the devil."

"You are crazy, little spring bird," said Isidoro with a melancholy smile, imitating Giacobbe.

"Yes, I am, I'm crazy; but even so, what do you care? You haven't done anything either to stop this sacrilege. Oh, it's disgraceful! I've lost all my good spirits----"

"It has made me ten years older."

"All my good spirits, and I keep thinking all the time of what Costantino will say to us for not being able to put a stop to it. Is it true that he is ill?"

"Not now; he was ill, but now he is only desperate," said Uncle Isidoro, shaking his head. Then he picked up the cord and began plaiting it again, murmuring below his breath: "Excommunicate--excommunicate----"

"I get so furious that I foam at the mouth--the way a dog does," said Giacobbe, raising his voice. "Just exactly like a dog. No, after all, I don't think I'll quit that house; I'll stay there if I burst, and see them when the blast of excommunication strikes them. Yes, if there is one thing that is sure, it is that G.o.d punishes both in this life and the other too, and I want to be on hand when it comes. What is that that you are making, Uncle 'Sidoro?"

"A horsehair cord."

There was a short silence; Giacobbe sat staring at the cord, his eyes dim with grief and anger.

"What are you going to do with it when it is done?"

"Sell it, over in Nuoro; I sell them here too sometimes; the peasants use them to tie their cows. What makes you look at it like that? You are not thinking of hanging yourself, are you?"

"No, little spring bird, you can do that for yourself, if it is G.o.d's will. Yes," he continued, again raising his voice. "They have actually published the notice."

Another silence; then Isidoro said: "Who knows? I can't help hoping yet that that marriage may never come off. I have faith in G.o.d, and I believe that San Costantino may still perform some miracle to stop it."

"Why, certainly; why not? A miracle by all means!" said Giacobbe scornfully.

"Yes; why not?" replied Isidoro calmly. "The real murderer of Basilio Ledda might die now, for instance, and confess. In that case the divorce could not hold good."

"Of course, die just at this precise time!" said the other in the same tone as before. "You are as innocent as a three-year-old child, Isidoro, with your Christian faith!"

"Well, who knows? Or he might be found out."

"Why, to be sure, he might be found out! Just in the nick of time! Only what has any one ever known about it? And who is to find him out?"