The pangs shooting from her feet were scarce bearable, but the repression
of them helped her to meet Angelo with a freer mind than, after the
interval of separation, she would have had. The old woodman was cooking
a queer composition of flour and milk sprinkled with salt for them.
Angelo cut a stout cloth to encase each of her feet, and bound them in
it. He was more cheerful than she had ever seen him, and now first spoke
of their destination. His design was to conduct her near to Bormio,
there to engage a couple of men in her service who would accompany her
to Meran, by the Val di Sole, while he crossed the Stelvio alone, and
turning leftward in the Tyrolese valley, tried the passage into
Switzerland.

Bormio, if, when they quitted the forest, a conveyance could be obtained,
was no more than a short day's distance, according to the old woodman's
directions. Vittoria induced the little girl to sit upon her knee, and
sang to her, but greatly unspirited the charm of her dress. The sun was
rising as they bade adieu to the hut.

About mid-day they quitted the shelter of forest trees and stood on
broken ground, without a path to guide them. Vittoria did her best to
laugh at her mishaps in walking, and compared herself to a Capuchin
pilgrim; but she was unused to going bareheaded and shoeless, and though
she held on bravely, the strong beams of the sun and the stony ways
warped her strength. She had to check fancies drawn from Arabian tales,
concerning the help sometimes given by genii of the air and enchanted
birds, that were so incessant and vivid that she found herself sulking at
the loneliness and helplessness of the visible sky, and feared that her
brain was losing its hold of things. Angelo led her to a half-shaded
hollow, where they finished the remainder of yesterday's meat and wine.