On the wooded hillside all was peaceful with the loveliness of the unworn day; the air was full of the smell of heather and wet mosses and resinous pine-cones; rain was falling above where the church was, but in these lower woods there was a burst of sunrise warmth and light. None of these things, however, did he note. He went on and on, downward and downward, holding the silver image close against his breast, scarcely feeling the boughs which grazed his cheeks or the flints which wounded his naked feet. When he came within sight of the place where he had left Santina the night before, he strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of her through the tangle of leaves and twigs and fronds. And true enough to her tryst she was there, waiting impatiently, fretting, wishing the time away, blaming her own folly in setting all her hopes of freedom and the future on a foolish, cowardly churl--for so she called him in her angry thought, as she crouched down under the chestnut scrub and saw the daylight widen and brighten. She ran a great risk in hiding there; if any of her people or their carters saw her, their suspicions would be aroused and their questions endless. She would say that she came for mushrooms; but they would not believe her. She was too well known for a late riser and a lazy wench. Still, she had imperilled everything to keep her word with him, and she waited for him seated on the moss, half covered with leaves, except at such times as her impatient temper made her cast prudence to the winds and rise and look out of the thicket upward to the hills. She had made herself look her best; a yellow kerchief was tied over her head, her hair shone like a blackbird's wing, her whole face and form were full of vivid, rich, and eager animal beauty. To get away--oh, only to get away! She looked up at the wild doves sailing over the tops of the tall pines and envied them their flight. Caris saw that eager, longing look upon her countenance before he reached her, and he thought it was caused by love for him. He held the Gesu to his bosom with both hands and coursed like lightning down the steep slope which still divided him from her; he was unconscious of how jaded, soiled, and uncomely he looked after his long night's work and all his ghostly fears; his feet were scratched and bleeding, his shirt soaked in sweat, his flesh bespattered with the clay, his hair wet and matted with moisture; he had no remembrance of that, he had no suspicion that even in that moment of agitation, when she believed her errand done, her will accomplished, she was saying in her heart as she watched him draw nigh: 'He has got them, he has got them; but, Holy Mary! what a clown!--he has all the mud of fifty graves upon him!' He rushed downward to her, and held the silver image out at arm's-length, and sobbed and laughed and cried aloud, indifferent who might hear, his voice trembling with awe and ecstasy.