Maurice felt the blood mount to his face.
"Close to where you left me," he answered.
"Oh, signore! Oh, signore!"
It was almost a cry. The sweat was pouring down the boy's face.
"Ma non è mia colpa! Non è mia colpa!" he exclaimed.
"What do you mean? What has happened, Gaspare?"
"I have seen Salvatore."
His voice was more quiet now. He fixed his eyes almost sternly on his
padrone, as if in the effort to read his very soul.
"Well? Well, Gaspare?"
Maurice was almost stammering now. He guessed--he knew what was coming.
"Salvatore came up to me just before I got to the village. I heard him
calling, 'Stop!' I stood still. We were on the path not far from the
fountain. There was a broken branch on the ground, a branch of olive.
Salvatore said: 'Suppose that is your padrone, that branch there!' and he
spat on it. He spat on it, signore, he spat--and he spat."
Maurice knew now.
"Go on!" he said.
And this time there was no uncertainty in his voice. Gaspare was
breathing hard. His breast rose and fell.
"I was going to strike him in the face, but he caught my hand, and
then--Signorino, signorino, what have you done?"
His voice rose. He began to look uncontrolled, distracted, wild, as if he
might do some frantic thing.
"Gaspare! Gaspare!"
Maurice had him by the arms.
"Why did you?" panted the boy. "Why did you?"
"Then Salvatore knows?"
Maurice saw that any denial was useless.
"He knows! He knows!"
If Maurice had not held Gaspare tightly the boy would have flung himself
down headlong on the ground, to burst into one of those storms of weeping
which swept upon him when he was fiercely wrought up. But Maurice would
not let him have this relief.
"Gaspare! Listen to me! What is he going to do? What is Salvatore going
to do?"
"Santa Madonna! Santa Madonna!"
The boy rocked himself to and fro. He began to invoke the Madonna and the
saints. He was beside himself, was almost like one mad.
"Gaspare--in the name of God----!"
"H'sh!"
Suddenly the boy kept still. His face changed, hardened. His body became
tense. With his hand still held up in a warning gesture, he crept to the
edge of the barn and looked round it.
"What is it?" Maurice whispered.
Gaspare stole back.
"It is only Lucrezia. She is spreading the linen. I thought----"