Page:Daphne, an Autumn Pastoral.djvu/154

 Assunta's eyes were full of hidden meaning.

"The Signorina ought to know."

"Why?"

"Has not the Signorina seen the blessed one herself?" she asked.

"I?" said Daphne, starting.

"The night the lambkin was killed, did not the Signorina go out in great distress, and did not the blessed one come to her aid?"

"Ma che!" exclaimed Daphne faintly, falling back, in her astonishment, upon Assunta's vocabulary.

"I have told no one, not even Giacomo," said Assunta, "but I saw it all. The noise had wakened me, and I followed, but I stopped when I saw that the divine one was there. Only I watched from the clump of cypress trees."

"Where was he?" asked Daphne with unsteady voice.

"Beyond the laurel trees," said Assunta. "Did not the Signorina see?"