"Look, padre min!" cried Paolina, suddenly and sharply, turning very pale, and grasping the parapet rung of the scaffolding as she spoke, "look! in the bagarino there on the road, just passing the church; certainly that must be the Signor Marchese Ludovico!--And with him--that lady?--yes, it is--it certainly is La Lalli--the prima donna, who has been singing at the theatre this Carnival." She pointed as she spoke to a bagarino that had just passed the western front of the church, and was now moving along the bit of road visible from the high window at which the monk and Paolina were standing. The tone in which she spoke caused the friar to look at her first, before turning his glance in the direction to which she pointed. She was pale, and evidently much moved, after a fashion that, taken together with the nature of the objects to which she drew his attention, and the fact that it was the Marchese Ludovico who had come to St. Apollinare to make the arrangements needed for the artist's work there, left but little doubt in the old man's mind as to the nature of her emotion. He looked shrewdly and earnestly into her face for a moment; and then turning his eyes to the stretch of road below, answered her: "Certainly, my daughter, that is the Marchese Ludovico. The lady I never saw before as far as I am aware. They are going towards Cervia." "No! See, father! They are turning off from the road to the left. Where does that turning to the left go?" "Only into the forest, daughter,--or to that little farm-house you see there just at the edge of it. You may get as far as the sea-shore through the Pineta; but the road is very bad for a carriage." "To the sea-shorn!" said Paolina, dreamily. "Yes, by keeping the track due east. The shore is not above a couple of miles away. But there is no port, or even landing-place there. And there are many tracks through the forest. You may get to Cervia, too, that way. But it is hardly likely that any one would leave the road to find a longer way by worse ways through the forest. More likely the object of the Signor Marchese is only to show the lady the famous Pineta." Paolina, while the monk was thus speaking, had kept her eyes fixed upon the little carriage, which was making its way along a by-road constructed on the top of a dike by the side of one of the numerous streams that intersect all the district; and she continued to watch it till she saw it stop at the entrance to the yard of the little farmhouse, to which the monk had called her attention. She then saw Ludovico and his companion descend from the carriage, and leave it apparently in the charge of a man, who came out from the farm-yard. And they then left the spot where they had alighted on foot, and in another minute were no longer visible from the window at which Paolina and the monk stood. "How long a walk is it, father, from here into the wood?" asked Paolina, musingly.