If she had done so, she would not have broken it--in that, at least, she was like other girls of her age and class.

Next to evils of which she knew nothing, the breaking of a promise of marriage was the greatest and most unpardonable of sins, no matter what the circumstances might be.

But she was sure that she had not promised anything.
At that moment in her meditations she heard the tread of a man's heel on the rocks.

The sailors were all barefoot, and she knew it must be San Miniato.

Unwilling to be alone with him even for a minute, she sprang lightly forward to meet him as he came.