"Is it possible that he was married?" said Trevor to himself, when Chiara carried away all the other trinkets, leaving this brooch in his hands, after having received double its value in money. He sat long beside the heated stove, weighing the probabilities. It was not an unheard-of thing for a youth of one-and-twenty, with plenty of money and no one to look after him, to travel about these remote and unfrequented regions with a girl who was not by law his wife. He did not know enough of Sidney's college career to decide whether or not he would be likely to fall into such a crime. But the fact that he had deserted this girl, a base and cowardly action, implied that she had no legal claim upon his protection. On the other hand, there crossed his mind Sidney's constant avoidance of ordinary social intercourse and avowed disinclination to marriage, which might be accounted for by this girl being already his wedded wife. Moreover, his anxiety now to learn her fate was greater than it would have been if no binding tie was involved in it. He was no longer dependent upon his uncle, and ran no risk of disinheritance by the discovery of any illicit attachment. If Sidney wished to marry now, the necessity of ascertaining what had become of the woman he had forsaken and lost sight of had become of primary importance, supposing her to be legally his wife, and the mother of his heir. But who could this girl have been?
Early in the morning Trevor found his way to the cemetery, and the gravedigger, who was digging a grave in the dreary and neglected quadrangle, pointed out to him a desolate corner, where the young Englishwoman lay alone. It was strewn over with broken pots and sherds among which a few nettles were growing, and only a little mound, hardly visible, marked the spot where she had been laid in the earth. Even Trevor felt his heart stirred a little at the thought of this unnamed and uncared-for grave. The sexton told him precisely the same story as Chiara had done, and was more than satisfied with the few kreutzers the foreigner gave to him.
Following the gravedigger's directions, Trevor took a narrow, winding path, plentifully bestrewn with stones, which led up the mountain. His brain was too busy with his absorbing discovery to allow him to see the magnificent views opening up to him at almost every turn. He might as well have been threading his way through the crooked streets of the city, so blind and intent was he. The great peaks hanging over the valley were still burning with the bright colors painted on them by the summer sun, before the rains and snows of winter washed them away, and the pine woods through which he passed were full of the pungent scent of the resinous cones hanging in rich clusters on every branch. The channels of the mountain torrents were almost dry, and the huge bowlders in them were bleached nearly as white as ivory. Higher up the air grew very keen; but the sun was hot, until he passed under the shadow of a precipitous wall of rock, into a long, lateral valley, or hollow, in the slope of the mountains, which the sun had ceased to visit, and would shine upon no more that year. Then he shivered, and looked about him curiously for any human habitation.