ever have wedded the unsweet creature, who was like a crawling image of
decay; but he, as if to account for his taste, said that they had been of
a common age once, when he married her; now she had grown old. He
repeated that she 'was born on a hired bed.' They saw nothing further of
her.

Vittoria's desire was to get to Meran speedily, that she might see her
friends, and have tidings of her lover and the city. Those baffled
beacon-flames on the heights had become an irritating indicative vision:
she thirsted for the history. Lorenzo offered to conduct her over the
Tonale Pass into the Val di Sole, or up the Val Furva, by the pass of the
Corno dei Tre Signori, into the Val del Monte to Pejo, thence by Cles, or
by Bolzano, to Meran. But she required shoeing and refitting; and for
other reasons also, she determined to go on to Bormio. She supposed that
Angelo had little money, and that in a place such as Bormio sounded to
her ears she might possibly obtain the change for the great money-order
which the triumph of her singing had won from Antonio-Pericles. In spite
of Angelo's appeals to her to hurry on to the end of her journey without
tempting chance by a single pause, she resolved to go to Bormio. Lorenzo
privately assured her that there were bankers in Bormio. Many bankers,
he said, came there from Milan, and that fact she thought sufficient for
her purpose. The wanderers parted regretfully. A little chapel, on a
hillock off the road, shaded by chestnuts, was pointed out to Lorenzo
where to bring a letter for Angelo. Vittoria begged Angelo to wait till
he heard from her; and then, with mutual wavings of hands, she was driven
out of his sight.