The gleam of the man's eyes upon it was terrible to see. "Will you
engage the word of a man that, in exchange for this, you will never do
what you have proposed?"

"St. Mary help me, I will, sir," he said. The coin changed hands.

"Where is Virginia?" I asked him, and he told me that she and Gino her
brother had been up before the light and were spreading dung. "Now,"
said I, "it is proper that I should tell you that I am without a
farthing in the world. I say that, not because I grudge you the money,
but that you may see how entirely I trust you."

"You may trust me indeed, sir," said Virginia's father with tears, and I
took my departure.

The peasant escorted me some half-mile of the road to Pistoja. He
explained that Condoglia and all the country for ten miles square about
it belonged to the Marchese Semifonte, who had a palace in Pistoja,
another in Florence, several villas upon the neighbouring heights, and a
fine eye for a handsome girl. It would have been at his door first of
all, as to the proper and appointed connoisseur, that the young Virginia
would have knocked, with her sixteen years for sale. For, in every sense
of the word, said her father, she was his property--a chattel of his. I
thanked God heartily that I had found a use for my gold piece, and a
salve for his conscience into the bargain. I felt, and told myself more
than once, that any tragic fortune to that nymph of the wild wood, not
averted by me, would bring the guilt of it to my door.

I may as well confess, too, that her haggard beautiful face and thinly
gowned shape were seldom out of my thoughts upon my two days' further