"Hark!" said she. "Hark! hark!" and with every repetition of the word her voice rose till it ended in a cry of terror. Antonio set his hand to his ear and listened intently. "It is the sound of men's feet on the rocky path," said he, smiling. "Tommasino returns, and I doubt not that he brings your jewels with him. Will you not give him a smiling welcome? Aye, and to me also your smiles would be welcome. For your weeping melts my heart, and the dimness of your eyes is like a cloud across the sun." Venusta's sobs had ceased, and she looked at Antonio with a face calm, white, and set. "It is not the Lord Tommasino," she said. "The men you hear are the Duke's men;" and then and there she told him the whole. Yet she spoke as though neither he nor any other were there, but as though she rehearsed for her own ear some lesson that she had learnt; so lifeless and monotonous was her voice as it related the shameful thing. And at last she ended saying, "Thus in an hour you will be dead, or captured and held for a worse death. It is I who have done it." And she bent her head again to meet her hands; yet she did not cover her face, but rested her chin on her hands, and her eyes were fixed immovably on Count Antonio. For the space of a minute or two he sat silent. Then he said, "I fear, then, that Tommasino and the rest have had a fight against great odds. But they are stout fellows, Tommasino, and old Bena, and the rest. I hope it is well with them." Then, after a pause, he went on, "Yes, the sound of the steps comes nearer. They will be here before long now. But I had not thought it of Luigi. The rogue! I trust they will not find the two lads." Venusta sat silent, waiting for him to reproach her. He read her thought on her face, and he smiled at her, and said to her, "Go and meet them; or go, if you will, away up the path. For you should not be here when the end comes." Then she flung herself at his feet, asking forgiveness, but finding no word for her prayer. "Aye, aye," said he gently. "But of God you must ask it in prayers and good deeds." And he dragged himself to the cave and set himself with his back against the rock and his face towards the path along which the Duke's men must come. And he called again to Venusta, saying, "I pray you, do not stay here." But she heeded him not, but sat again on the ground, her chin resting on her hands and her eyes on his. "Hark, they are near now!" said he. And he looked round at sky and trees, and at the rippling swift river, and at the long dark shadows of the hills; and he listened to the faint sounds of the birds and living creatures in the wood. And a great lust of life came over him, and for a moment his lip quivered and his head fell; he was very loth to die. Yet soon he smiled again and raised his head, and so leant easily against the rock.