During the repose at noontide, when he with others broke bread and ate soup at the big table in Massaio's kitchen, she was not there. They were served by her aunt Eufemia. He had only accepted this work of fetching and stacking for sake of the vicinity to her which it offered; and his heart was heavy and his blood was turned, as he would himself have expressed it. Chagrin and irritation, in the Italian's opinion, turns the blood as tempest changes milk. He was too shy and tongue-tied to venture to inquire for her; and the instinct of secrecy which characterizes all passion was joined to his natural hesitation in speech. Massaio's people seemed, too, to him to be very grand folks, with their byres and stalls filled with beasts, and their casks of wine and great earthen jars of oil standing there for anybody to read in mute declaration of their prosperity. A barrel of wine had never entered the hut of the Lascarises within the memory of man. No one took any notice of him. He was a 'bracciante,' paid by the day, nothing more. Had Eufemia known that he was the old witch's son he would have attracted her attention; but she did not know it. When there is quick rough work to be done, nobody notices who does it. When the last wood of the day was brought in, Caris went home by himself, by ways he knew. He was downcast and dull. He had been baulked of his knife-play with the carter, and he had not seen Santina. At a bend in the hill-path, where the chestnut saplings grew taller than usual, and aged pines with scaly scarred trunks were left standing, he heard a laugh amongst the leafy scrub, and in the dusk of the moonless evening a slender straight figure shot up from its screen of heather. 'Eh, Caris!' cried the girl to him. 'What a poor day's work! Have you left Black Simon without an inch of steel in him? Fie for shame! A man should always write his name large when he has a stiletto for his pen.' Caris gazed at her dumb and agitated, the veins in his throat and temples throbbing. 'It was your uncle stopping the play,' he muttered; 'and I could not begin to brawl in his house.' Santina shrugged her shoulders. 'Brave men don't want excuses,' she said unkindly. 'Ask of me in Maremma,' said Caris sullenly. 'They will tell you whether men taste my blade.' 'Maremma is far,' said Santina, sarcastic and jeering; 'and the men there are weak!' 'You shall see what you shall see,' muttered Caris, growing purple, red, and then pale. 'Tell me a man you have a quarrel with--nay, one who stands well with you--that will be better.' 'Those are words,' she said, with curt contempt. 'You shall see deeds. Who is it stands well with you?' 'No one. Many wish it.' 'Your promised man should; but he is old, and a poor creature. 'Twould be no credit to do away with him.' 'He is a poor creature,' said Santina, her lips curling. 'So are you, when to do a woman a pleasure you will not open a grave.' 'Open a grave! Nay, nay, the saints forbid.'