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 for they were dissatisfied, and their curiosity had no food for its appetites.

'One would have thought to know who that wench is now,' they grumbled to one another, and some of the women said:

'She has got no name. That is odd. Do you mind of the time when Saturnino was taken up in the hills yonder? Some did think then the girl was Saturnino's daughter. But Joconda was always so close.'

Musa herself did not notice that she had no name in that little wrinkled bit of paper which gave her the money and the mule.

Alone she passed the long oppressive sultry hours.

She heard the voices of the people outside as the sun dropped and the night came; but she would not open, even to old Andreino, who rapped at the door with a stick and called to her more than once. She lay awake all the night long; towards dawn she fell into what was rather stupor than sleep. In her sleep she was always trying to loosen the weight of the sand and the earth that lay on the body of her lost friend, and to lift up Joconda from that close and cruel prison. She thought she could have better borne her loss if the dead body had