sang to her, but greatly unspirited the charm of her dress. The sun was
rising as they bade adieu to the hut.

About mid-day they quitted the shelter of forest trees and stood on
broken ground, without a path to guide them. Vittoria did her best to
laugh at her mishaps in walking, and compared herself to a Capuchin
pilgrim; but she was unused to going bareheaded and shoeless, and though
she held on bravely, the strong beams of the sun and the stony ways
warped her strength. She had to check fancies drawn from Arabian tales,
concerning the help sometimes given by genii of the air and enchanted
birds, that were so incessant and vivid that she found herself sulking at
the loneliness and helplessness of the visible sky, and feared that her
brain was losing its hold of things. Angelo led her to a half-shaded
hollow, where they finished the remainder of yesterday's meat and wine.
She set her eyes upon a gold-green lizard by a stone and slept.

'The quantity of sleep I require is unmeasured,' she said, a minute
afterwards, according to her reckoning of time, and expected to see the
lizard still by the stone. Angelo was near her; the sky was full of
colours, and the earth of shadows.

'Another day gone!' she exclaimed in wonderment, thinking that the days
of human creatures had grown to be as rapid and (save toward the one end)
as meaningless as the gaspings of a fish on dry land. He told her that he
had explored the country as far as he had dared to stray from her. He had
seen no habitation along the heights. The vale was too distant for
strangers to reach it before nightfall. 'We can make a little way on,'
said Vittoria, and the trouble of walking began again. He entreated her
more than once to have no fear. 'What can I fear?' she asked. His voice
sank penitently: 'You can rely on me fully when there is anything to do
for you.'

'I am sure of that,' she replied, knowing his allusion to be to his
frenzy of yesterday. In truth, no woman could have had a gentler
companion.

On the topmost ridge of the heights, looking over an interminable gulf of
darkness they saw the lights of the vale. 'A bird might find his perch
there, but I think there is no chance for us,' said Vittoria. 'The moment
we move forward to them the lights will fly back. It is their way of
behaving.'

Angelo glanced round desperately. Farther on along the ridge his eye
caught sight of a low smouldering fire. When he reached it he had a great
disappointme