Chapter 20 - Page 2

sister was in a state to receive rather than give consolation.

"Carissima, you are ill!" she said with concern.

Vittoria assented. "It is my eyes--my head. The heat is perhaps as much to blame as our many worries." She removed her hat and pressed slender fingers to her throbbing temples, while Oliveta drew the curtains against the fierce rays of a westering sun. Later, clad in a loose silken robe, Vittoria flung herself upon the low couch and her companion let down her luxuriant masses of hair until it enveloped her like a cloud. She lay back upon the cushions in grateful relaxation, while Oliveta combed and brushed the braids, soothing her with an occasional touch of cool palms or straying fingers.

"How strange that both our lives should have been blighted by this man!" the peasant girl said at length.

"'Sh-h! You must not think of him so unceasingly," Vittoria warned her.

"One's thoughts go where they will when one is sick and wearied. I have grown to hate everything about me--the people, the life, the country."

"Sicily is calling you, perhaps?"

Oliveta answered eagerly, "Yes! You, too, are unhappy, my dearest. Let us go home. Home!" She let her hands fall idle and stared ahead of her, seeing the purple hills behind Terranova, the dusty gray-green groves of olive-trees, the brilliant fields of sumach, the arbors bent beneath their weight of blushing fruit. "I want to see the village people again, my father's relatives, old Aliandro, and the Notary's little boy--"

"He must be a well-grown lad, by now," murmured Vittoria. "Aliandro, I fear, is dead. But it is a long road to Terranova; we have--changed."

"Yes--everything has changed. My happiness has changed to misery, my hope to despair, my love to hate."

"Poor sister mine!" Vittoria sympathized. "Be patient. No wound is too deep for time to heal. The scar will remain, but the pain will disappear. I should know, for I have suffered."

"And do you suffer no longer? It has been a long time since you mentioned--Martel."

For a moment Vittoria remained silent, her eyes closed. When she replied it was not in answer to the question. "I can never return to Sicily, for it would awaken nothing but distress in me. But there is no reason why you should not go if you wish. You have the means, while all that I had has been given to the Sisters."

Oliveta cried out at this passionately. "I have nothing. That which you gave me I hold only for you. But I would not go alone; I shall never leave you."

"Some time you must, my dear. Our parting is not far off."

"I am not sure." The peasant girl hesitated. "Deep in your heart, do you hope to find peace inside the walls of that