Presently they rose, Assunta the calmer for her petitions, and together they proceeded upward.  The elder tried to explain what a base and abominable thing it was that her husband, an honest free trader between Italy and Switzerland, should have been destroyed by the slaves in the government vessels beneath, and Jenny nodded and strove to understand.  She was making progress in Italian, though Assunta’s swift tongue and local patois were as yet beyond her comprehension.  But she knew that her dead smuggler husband was the subject on Assunta’s lips and nodded her sympathy.

“Sons of dogs!” cried the widow; then a steep section of their road reduced her to silence.

The great event of that day, which brought Jenny Doria so violently back into the tragedy of the past, had yet to happen, and many hours elapsed before she was confronted with it.  The women climbed presently to a little field of meadow grass that sparkled with tiny flowers and spread its alpine sward among thickets of mulberry.  Here their work awaited them; but first they ate the eggs and wheaten bread, walnuts and dried figs that they had brought and shared a little flask of red wine.  They finished with a handful of cherries and then Assunta began to pluck leaves for her great basket while Jenny loitered a while and smoked a cigarette.  It was a new habit acquired since her marriage.

Presently she set to work and assisted her companion until they had gathered a full load of leaves.  Then the younger plucked one or two great golden orange lilies that grew in this little glen, and soon the women started upon their homeward way.  They had descended about a mile and at a shoulder of Griante sat down to rest in welcome shadow.  Beneath, to the northward, lay their home beside the water and, gazing down upon the scattered and clustered habitations of Menaggio, Jenny declared that she saw the red roof of Villa Pianezzo and the brown of the lofty shed behind, where dwelt her uncle’s silkworms.

Opposite, on its promontory, stood the little township of Bellagio and behind it flashed the glassy face of Lecco in the cloudless sunshine.  And then, suddenly, as if it had been some apparition limned upon the air, there stood in the path the figure of a tall man.  His red head was bare and from the face beneath shone a pair of wild and haggard eyes.  They saw the stranger’s great tawny mustache, his tweed garments and knickerbockers, his red waistcoat, and the cap he carried in his hand.

It was Robert Redmayne.  Assunta, who gazed upon him without understanding, suddenly felt Jenny’s hand tighten hard upon her arm.  Jenny uttered one loud cry of terror and then relaxed and fell unconscious upon the ground.  The widow leaped to her aid, cried comfortable words and prayed the young wife to fear nothing; but it was some time before Jenny came to her senses and when she did so her nerve appeared to have deserted her.

“Did you see him?” she gasped, clinging to Assunta and gazing fearfully where her uncle had stood.