know,' she answered. 'What is the use of talking about it? I have said all—but tell me only when you are going.'
'To-morrow morning. I shall be back in a fortnight.'
'You will never come back,' said Vittoria, in a dull and hopeless tone.
She spoke with such conviction that Orsino was silent for a moment. He had not the smallest belief in any danger, but he did not know how to argue with her.
'I have thought it all over,' she went on. 'If you try to live there, you will certainly be killed. But if you only go once, there is a chance—a poor, miserable, little chance. Let them think that you are coming up from Piedimonte, by way of Randazzo. It is above Randazzo that the black lands begin, all lava and ashes, with deep furrows in which a man can lie hidden to shoot. That is where they will try to kill you. Go the other way, round by Catania. It is longer, but they will not expect you, and you can get a guide. They may not find out that you have changed your plan. If they should know it, they could kill you even more easily on that side, in the narrow valley; but they need not know it.'
'Nothing will happen to me on either side,' said Orsino carelessly.
Vittoria bent her head and walked on in silence beside him.
'I did not wish to talk about all that,' he continued. 'There are much more important things. When I come back we must be married soon—'
'We shall never be married if you go to Sicily,' answered Vittoria in the same dull voice.
It was a fixed idea, and Orsino felt the hopelessness of trying to influence her, together with a pardonable impatience. The couple ahead of them reached the end of the walk, turned, met them, and passed them with a greeting, for they were acquaintances. Where the little avenue ended there was a great fountain of travertine stone, behind which, in the wide arch of the opening trees, they could see the Campagna and the Sabine mountains to the eastward.
Vittoria stopped when they reached the other side of the basin, which was moss-grown but full of clear water that trickled down an almost shapeless stone triton. The statue and the fountain hid them from any one who might be coming up the walk, and at their feet lay the broad green Campagna. They were quite alone.
The young girl raised her eyes, and she looked already as though she had been in an illness.
'We cannot stay more than a moment,' she said. 'If people see us going off together, they will guess. I want it to be all my secret. I want to say goodbye to you—for the last time. I shall remember you always as you are now, with the light on your face.'
She looked at him long, and her eyes slowly filled with tears, which did not break nor run over, but little by little subsided again, taking her grief back to her heart. Orsino's brows frowned with pain, for he saw how profoundly she believed that she was never to see him again, and it hurt him that for him she should be so hurt, most of all because he was convinced that there was no cause.
'We go to-morrow,' he said. 'We shall be in Messina the next day. On the day after that go and see my mother, and she will tell you that she has had news of our safe arrival. What more can I say? I am sure of it.'
But Vittoria only looked long and earnestly into his face.
'I want to remember,' she said in a low voice.
'For a fortnight?' Orsino smiled lovingly, and took her hand.
'For ever,' she answered very gravely, and her fingers clutched his suddenly and hard.
He still smiled, for he could find nothing to say against such possession of presentiment. Common sense never has anything effectual to oppose to conviction.
'Goodbye,' she said softly. 'Goodbye, Orsino.'
She had not called him by his name yet, and it sounded like an enchantment to him, though it was a rough name in itself. The breeze stirred the ilex leaves overhead in the spring afternoon, and the water trickled down, with a pleasant murmur, into the big basin. It was all lovely and peaceful and soft, except the look in her despairing eyes. That disturbed him as he met it and saw no change in it, but always the same hopeless pain.
'Come,' he said quietly, 'this is not sensible. Do I look like a man who is going to be killed like a dog in the street, without doing something to help myself?'
Her eyes filled again.
'Oh, pray—please—do not speak like that! Say goodbye to me—I cannot bear it any longer—and yet it kills me to let you go!'
She turned from him and covered her eyes with her hands for a moment, while he put his arm round her reassuringly. Then, all at once, she looked up.
'I will be brave—goodbye!' she said quickly.
It was a silent leave-taking after that, for he could not say much. His only answer to her must be his safe return, but as they went back along the walk she felt that she was with him for the last time. It was like going with him to execution.
Orsino walked back to the city alone, thinking over her words and her face, and wondering whether there could be anything in presentiments of evil. He had never had any himself, that he could remember, and he had never seen anybody so thoroughly under the influence of one as Vittoria seemed to be.
Before dinner he went to see San Giacinto, whom he found alone in his big study, sitting in his huge chair before his enormous table. He was so large that he had his own private furniture made to suit his own dimensions. The table was covered with note-books and papers, very neatly arranged, and the gray-haired giant was writing a letter. He looked up as Orsino entered and uttered a sort of inarticulate exclamation of satisfaction. Then he went on writing, while Orsino sat down and watched him.
'Do you happen to have a gun license?' asked San Giacinto, without looking up.
'Of course.'
'Put it in your pocket for the journey,' was the answer, as the pen went on steadily.
'Is there any game about Camaldoli?' enquired Orsino, after a pause.
'Brigands,' replied San Giacinto, laconically, and still writing.
He would have said 'woodcock' in the same tone, being a plain man and not given to dramatic emphasis. Orsino laughed a little incredulously, but said nothing as he sat waiting for his kinsman to finish his letter. His eyes wandered about the room, and presently they fell on a stout sole-leather bag which stood by a chair near the window. On the chair itself lay two leathern gun-cases obviously containing modern rifles, as their shape and size showed. With a man's natural instinct for arms, Orsino rose and took one of the weapons out of its case, and examined it.
'Winchesters,' said San Giacinto, still driving his pen.
'I see,' answered Orsino, feeling the weight, and raising the rifle to his shoulder as though to try the length of the stock.
'Most people prefer them in Sicily,' observed San Giacinto, who had signed his name and was folding his note carefully.
'What do you want them for?' asked the younger man, still incredulous.
'It is the custom of the country to carry them down there,' said the other. 'Besides, there are brigands about. I told you
