It was not that the mere fact of the girl's entering the Pineta
alone seemed to him, accustomed as he was to the place and its
surroundings, to involve any danger to her of any sort, beyond,
indeed, the possibility of losing herself for a few hours in the
forest. The whole extent of it is very frequently traversed by the
men in the employment of the farmers to whom the Papal government
was in the practice of letting out the right of pasturage and
management of the wood. And these people were all known. There were,
it is true, encroachers on these rights, who might well be less
known, and less responsible persons; and possibly the forest paths
might sometimes be traversed by people bound on some errand of
smuggling. But nothing had ever happened of late years in the forest
to suggest the probability of any danger.
It was rather the nature of Paolina's own motives for her
expedition, as they were patent to the old monk, that disquieted him
on her behalf. He had marked the expression of her face when she had
seen the bagarino with Ludovico and his companion pass along the
road towards the forest, and the change in her whole manner after
that. And monk, and octogenarian as he was, he had been at no loss
to comprehend the nature of the emotions which had been aroused in
her mind by the sight. And he feared that evil might arise from the
collision of passions, which it seemed likely were about to be
brought into the presence of each other.
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