ttle sad just now."

Hermione felt that the boy had some trouble which, perhaps, he would
like to tell her. Perhaps some instinct made him know that she felt
tender towards him, very tender that night.

"I am sorry for that," she said--"very sorry."

"Si, Signora. There is trouble in our house."

"What is it, Ruffo?"

The boy hesitated to answer. He moved his bare feet on the bridge and
looked down towards the boat. Hermione did not press him, said nothing.

"Signora," Ruffo said, at last, coming to a decision, "my Patrigno is
not a good man. He makes my mamma jealous. He goes after others."

It was the old story of the South, then! Hermione knew something of the
persistent infidelities of Neapolitan men. Poor women who had to suffer
them!

"I am sorry for your mother," she said, gently. "That must be very
hard."

"Si, Signora, it is hard. My mamma was very unhappy to-day. She put her
head on the table, and she cried. But that was because my Patrigno is
put in prison."

"In prison! What has he done?"

Ruffo looked at her, and she saw that the simple expression had gone out
of his eyes.

"Signora, I thought perhaps you knew."

"I? But I have never seen your step-father."

"No, Signora. But--but you have that girl here in your house."

"What girl?"

Suddenly, almost while she was speaking, Hermione understood.

"Peppina!" she said. "It was your Patrigno who wounded Peppina?"

"Si, Signora."

There was a silence between them. Then Hermione said, gently:

"I am very sorry for your poor mother, Ruffo--very sorry. Tell me, can
she manage? About money, I mean?"

"It is not so much the money she was crying about, Signora. But, of
course, while Patrigno is in prison he cannot earn money for her. I
shall give her my money. But my mamma does not like all the neighbors
knowing about that girl. It is a shame for her."

"Yes, of course it is. It is very hard."

She thought a moment. Then she said:

"It must be horrible--horrible!"

She spoke with all the vehemence of her nature. Again, as long ago, when
she knelt before a mountain shrine in the night, she had put herself
imaginatively in the place of a woman, this time in the place of Ruffo's
mother. She realized how she would have felt if her husband, her "man,"
had ever been faithless to her.

Ruffo looked at her almost in surprise.

"I wish I could see your poor mother, Ruffo," she said. "I would go to
see her, only--well, you see, I have Peppin