“The child and you both out all night, heaven knows where!  What but one thing can your mother think?”

“If she thinks but one thing, that thing is false.”

“Maybe.  I believe so myself, but, Sior’ Clelia will not.  Why do you send the child out at such hours?”

“What did she say to my mother?”

“Nothing; only that she had to go.”

“Faithful little soul!”

“Aye!  And it is when little maids are faithful like this that men ruin them.  I do not want to speak without respect to you, Adone, for I have eaten your bread and been sheltered by your roof through many a year; but for whatever end you send that child out of nights, you do a bad thing, a cruel thing, a thing unworthy of your stock; and if I know Clelia Alba——­and who should know her if not I?—­ she will never let Nerina enter her house again.”

Adone’s face grew dark.

“The house is mine.  Nerina shall not be turned out of it.”

“Perhaps it is yours; but it is your mother’s too, and you will scarce turn out your mother for the sake of a little beggar-girl?”

Adone was silent; he saw the dilemma; he knew his mother’s nature; he inherited it.

“Go you,” he said at last; “go you and tell her that the child went out on my errands, indeed, but I have not seen her; there is no collusion with her, and she is not and never will be dama of mine.”

“I will take her no such message, for she would not listen.  Go you; say what you choose; perhaps she will credit you, perhaps she will not.  Anyhow, you are warned.  As for me, I will go and search for Nerina.”

“Do you mean she has not returned?”

“Certainly she has not.  She will no more dare to return than a kicked dog.  You forget she is a young thing, a creature of nothing; she thinks herself no more than a pebble or a twig.  Besides, your mother called her a wanton.  That is a word not soon washed out.  She is humble as a blade of grass, but she will resent that.  You have made much trouble with your rebellious work.  You have done ill —­ ill —­ ill!”

Adone submitted mutely to the upbraiding; he knew he had done selfishly, wrongfully, brutally, that which had seemed well to himself with no consideration of others.

“Get you gone and search for the child,” he said at last.  “I will go myself to my mother.”

“It is the least you can do.  But you must not forget the cattle.  Nerina is not there to see to them.”

She pushed past him and went on to the footbridge; but midway across it she turned and called to him:  “I lit the fire, and the coffee is on it.  Where am I to look for the child?  In the heather? in the woods? up in Ruscino? down in the lower valley? or may be at the presbytery?”

“Don Silverio is absent,” Adone called back to her; and he passed on under the olive-trees towards his home.  Gianna paused on the bridge and watched him till he was out of sight; then she went back herself by another path which led to the stables.  A thought had struck her:  Nerina was too devoted to the cattle to have let them suffer; possible she was even now attending to them in their stalls.