He met Fenice alone, left sitting at the hearth as if she had been long expecting him. From her face had vanished every trace of yesterday’s storm, not one motion of the sorrow, not so much as a line of her violent self-control met his dark eyes. “You have managed well that I should sleep away the hours,” he said sharply. “Yes,” she said, indifferently. “You were tired out. You will arrive in Pistoja early enough, if you do not have to meet the murderers until the afternoon.” “I did not ask you to concern yourself about my weariness. Are you still going to force yourself upon me? It will do you no good, girl. Where are my men?” “Gone.” “Gone? Do you intend to make a fool of me? Where are they? Silly woman, as if they would go without being paid!” And he strode hastily toward the door, about to go out. But Fenice remained sitting motionless, and kept speaking in the same even tone: “I have paid them. I told them that you needed sleep and that I would accompany you down there myself; it happens that the supply of wine has given out and I must buy new, an hour this side of Pistoja.” For a moment anger prevented him from speaking. “No!” he broke out at last, “not with you, never with you! Treacherous serpent! It is laughable that you still think to ensnare me in your slippery coils. We are now as completely separated as ever. I despise you that you hold me weak and pitiable enough to be won over by these little artifices. I will not go with you! Let me have one of your servants and then--pay yourself for the price of the contrabbandieri.” He threw a purse to her, and opened the door to search for some one who might conduct him down the mountain. “Put yourself to no trouble,” said she, “you will find none of the servants; they are all away in the mountains. And, besides, there is no one in Treppi who could serve you. Poor, feeble, old women, old men and children, they are still in their huts. If you do not believe me--look! “And apart from all else,” she continued, as he stood at the threshold irresolute, in fury and vexation, and turned his back on her. “Why, think you, is the way so impossible and dangerous if I guide you? I had a dream last night by which I see that you are not intended for me. It is true, I shall still always like you a little, and it will give me pleasure still to chat with you for a few hours. Must I, for that reason, be laying snares for you? You are free to go from me wherever you will, to death or to life. Only, I would go along with you a little way. I will swear to you, if that will appease you, that it will be for only a short way--by my life, not so far as Pistoja. Only so far until you have struck the right path. For if you go off on your own account you will soon lose your way, so that you can go neither forward nor back. You ought to know that, indeed, from your former tramps over the mountain.”