To her skilled eye, used to trace such slender signs, the marks of his footsteps were visible on the wet mossy ground he had traversed. She followed them; they went always southward, straight ahead to that golden horizon where Rome lay, sixty miles or more beyond the moors, out of sight, sunk down in the sunlit ocean of the air.
Her heart stood still as that southward direction of his steps brought confirmation of that sudden fear which had dawned on her as though its light were shed from heaven. But it was not for the first time that terror gave her fresh courage, as the spur wrenches fresh effort from the sinking horse. To baffle and disarm this man would need all her prudence and all her boldness, that she knew; and almost her terror was effaced by the sense of returning happiness which came to her with the thought of once more shielding Este from any danger.
She walked on and on, cautiously though quickly; stooping every now and then to verify the traces of Saturnino's passage through the woodland. There was but one path practicable southward; and she knew
