Go and send for Gigi Secchi if he is still in the neighbourhood, and bring him here, and let us have the story from his own lips." When they were alone the two men looked at each other for a moment, and then old Saracinesca laughed again; but Giovanni looked very grave, and his face was pale.

Presently his father became serious again.
"If this thing is true," he said, "I would advise you, Giovanni, to pay a visit to the other side of the hills.

It is time." Giovanni was silent for a moment.

He was intensely interested in the situation, but he could not tell his father that he had promised Corona not to see her, and he had not yet explained to himself her sudden appearance so near Saracinesca.
"I think it would be better for you to go first," he said to his father.
"But I am not at all sure this story is true." "I?
Oh, I will go when you please," returned the old man, with another laugh.

He was always ready for anything active.
But Gigi Secchi could not be found.