Nerina failed to understand, but her own mind was busy with what seemed to her this monstrous injustice.

“But why do they let them do it?  They take and chain the men who rob a traveller or a house.”

Adone cast his last atom of bread to the birds.

“There are two measures,” he answered.  “Kill one, you go to the galleys for life.  Kill half a million, you are a hero in history, and get in your own generation titles, and money, and applause.”

“Baruffo was a good man and my father’s friend,” Nerina said, following her own thoughts.  “Baruffo was in the oak woods always, far below us, but he often brought us wine and game at night, and sometimes money too.  Baruffo was a good man.  He was so kind.  Twice my father aided him to escape.  But one night they seized him; there was a whole troop of carabineers against him, they took him in a trap, they could never have got him else, and I saw him brought down the mountain road and I ran and kissed him before they could stop me; and he never came back —­ they kept him.”

“No doubt they kept him,” said Adone bitterly.  “Baruffo was a peasant outlawed; if he had been a banker, or a minister, or a railway contractor, he might have gone on thieving all his life, and met only praise.  They keep poor Baruffo safe in their accursed prisons, but they will take care never to keep, or take even for a day, law-breakers whose sins are far blacker than his, and whose victims are multitudes.”

“If Baruffo were here he would help you,” said Nerina.  “He was such a fine strong man and had no fear.”

Adone rose and put his hands on the handles of the plough.

“Take up your linen, little one,” he said to the girl, “and go home, or my mother will be angry with you for wasting time.”

Nerina came close to him and her brown dog-like eyes looked up like a dog’s into his face.

“Tell me what you do, Adone,” she said beseechingly, “I will tell no one.  I was very little when Baruffo came and went to and fro in our hut; but I had sense; I never spoke.  Only when the guards had him I kissed him, because then it did not matter what they knew; there was no hope.”

“Yes, I will tell you,” said Adone.  “Maybe I shall end like Baruffo.”

Then he called on Orlando and Rinaldo by their names, and they lowered their heads and strained at their collars, and with a mighty wrench of their loins and shoulders they forced the share through the heavy earth.

Nerina stood still and looked after him as he passed along under the vine-hung trees.

“Baruffo may have done some wrong,” she thought, “but Adone, he has done none, he is as good as if he were a saint of God, and if he should be obliged to do evil it will be no fault of his, but because other men are wicked.”

Then she put the load of linen on her head, and went along the grassy path homeward, and she saw the rosy gladioli, and the golden tansy, by which she passed through tears.  Yet she was glad because Adone had trusted her; and because she now knew as much as the elder women in his house, who had put no confidence in her.