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 alone. She knew that she might suspect him falsely, but that if his soul were bent on guilt no words of hers would turn him from it; whilst on the other hand, if he had no such thought, to gall him by suggestion and accusation of it might sting into crime a temper which had always found in crime the fiercest joy and most lasting desire of life.

She wasted not one moment, but took her course with that swift decision which had often served her in good stead. In Este's service she recovered the elasticity, the force, the energy, the physical animation, which since he had left her had gone out of her as utterly as its colour and palm-like grace go out of a dianthus that has been plucked from its place in the rocks beneath the sea and cast down to perish on the sand.

She took some bread, some maize, and a gourd of water, took that three-edged poignard of Florence which Este had found in the brigand's lair by Santa Fiora, and had left behind him here, took one little silver piece that had remained in the old coffer with the corn, and, closing the stone doors of the tombs behind her, went out on the track of Saturnino.