and the shadows together tell me that the sun has done much travel since I fell asleep. I must lose no more time. Addio,” he ended, patting her cheek with one hand, and settling his cap with the other.
She said nothing, but there were signs in her face which made him speak again in as serious and as chiding a tone as he could command—
“Now, Tessa, you must not cry. I shall be angry; I shall not love you if you cry. You must go home to your black-faced kid, or if you like you may go back to the gate and see the horses start. But I can stay with you no longer, and if you cry, I shall think you are troublesome to me.”
The rising tears were checked by terror at this change in Tito’s voice. Tessa turned very pale, and sat in trembling silence, with her blue eyes widened by arrested tears.
“Look now,” Tito went on, soothingly, opening the wallet that hung at his belt, “here is a pretty charm that I have had a long while—ever since I was in Sicily, a country a long way off.”