When she reached the island, Tedesco had long since disappeared, and, although there were no absolute proofs, he was thought to be dead. For months after he had learned of the faithlessness of both sweetheart and friend he had been seen very little outside his studio. What he did there was not known, for he invited nobody to enter. Even the neighbor’s wife who had done the housekeeping for the two young men did not see the interior of the studio after Rubina ran away. She gossiped of the sculptor to the women down the street, and they all shook their heads, touched their foreheads significantly with index-fingers, and sadly repeated, “_Un po’ matto, un po’ matto_”--“A little mad.” Several weeks passed after the flight of the young couple, and then the sculptor was observed nearly every morning to walk over one of the hills in the direction of a high cliff. Sometimes he was absent but a few hours, but on other days he did not return until night. At length, towards the end of winter, he gave up his studio and apartment without a word of his plans to any one. When he had departed, carrying the few articles of clothing which were kept in the outer room, the housekeeper entered the studio and found, to her astonishment, that, with the sculptor, all traces of his work had disappeared. After a while it was discovered that he had taken up his abode in a certain cave near the water’s edge, at the foot of the cliff, along the top of which he had been frequently seen walking. This cave had always been considered approachable only from the water side; but some men who were fishing for cuttlefish near the shore had seen the mad sculptor clamber down the precipice and enter the mouth of the cave, which was half closed by accumulated rubble and sand. The fishermen, of course, exaggerated their story, and the simple islanders, who always regard a demented person with awe, came to believe that the sculptor possessed superhuman strength and agility; and, although their curiosity concerning his mode of life and occupation was much excited, their superstitious fears prevented them from interfering with him or attempting to investigate his actions. At long intervals the hermit would appear in the piazza, receive his letters, buy a few articles of food, and disappear again, not to be seen for weeks.