were enclosed
in their common risk as in some secret meeting-place where no
consciousness of the outer world intruded; and though their talk kept
the safe level of their immediate concerns he felt the change in every
inflection of Fulvia's voice and in the subtler emphasis of her
silences.

The way was long, and he had feared that she would be taxed beyond her
strength; but the miles seemed to fly beneath their horses' feet, and
they could scarcely believe that the dark hills which rose ahead of them
against a whitening sky marked the limit of their journey.

With some difficulty they found their way to the vine-dresser's house, a
mere hut in a remote fold of the hills. From motives of prudence they
had not warned the nurse of their coming; but they found the old woman
already at work in her melon-patch and learned from her that her son had
gone down to his day's labour in the valley. She received Fulvia with a
tender wonder, as at some supernatural presence descending into her
life, too much awed, till the first embraces were over, to risk any
conjecture as to Odo's presence. But with the returning sense of
familiarity--the fancied recovery of the nurseling's features in the
girl's definite outline--came the inevitable reaction of curiosity, and
the fugitives felt themselves coupled in the old woman's meaning smiles.
To Odo's surprise Fulvia received these innuendoes with baffling
composure, parrying the questions she seemed to answer, and finally
taking refuge in a plea for rest. But the accord of the previous night
was broken; and when the travellers set out again, starting a little
before sunset to avoid the vine-dresser's return, the constraint of the
day began to weigh upon them. In Fulvia's case physical weariness
perhaps had a share in the change; but whatever the cause, its effect
was to make this stage of the journey strangely tedious to both.

Their way lay through the country north of Vicenza, whence they hoped by
dawn to gain Peschiera on the lake of Garda, and hire a chaise which
should take them across the border. For the first hour or two they had
the new moon to light them; but as it set the sky clouded and drops of
rain began to fall. Fulvia had hitherto shown a gay indifference to the
discomforts of the journey; but she presently began to complain of the
cold and to question Odo anxiously as to the length of the way. The
hilliness of the country forced them to travel slowly, and it seemed to
Odo t