met; but Zefferino had been too cunning for her. He and the mule were far away; the animal, in a dealer's hands, being sold at Massa, and the little traitor safe with his mother's brother, who lived not on Bolsena water, but at the foundries at Follonica,
So Zirlo dropped out of her life, and the solitude which she had told Sanctis was so dear to her closed in upon her yet more completely.
She was not alarmed by the threats of Zefferino's father, for she knew there was now nothing in the place to which his kind would attach value; but she was afraid lest others hearing of the tombs would drive her out of them, and often in the night she awoke and listened, hearing the call of the bittern, or the cry of the hare seized by a booted-eagle. She was not afraid, but she was troubled.
Another and a yet greater sorrow also fell upon her at that time. Leone was killed.
To the woods one afternoon two of the smiths of Follonica came with their guns to shoot what they might of the furred and feathered owners of the soil. It was against the law at this season, but there was no one to enforce the law; it would need legions of mounted guards to scour Maremma and
