“Say on, Jacopo.”

“I have not dared to trust my secrets even to the confessional, Signore, and can I be so bold as to offer them to you.”

“Truly, it is a strange behest!”

“Signore, it is.  You are noble, I am of humble blood.  Your ancestors were senators and Doges of Venice, while mine have been, since the fishermen first built their huts in the Lagunes, laborers on the canals, and rowers of gondolas.  You are powerful, and rich, and courted; while I am denounced, and in secret, I fear, condemned.  In short, you are Don Camillo Monforte, and I am Jacopo Frontoni!”

Don Camillo was touched, for the Bravo spoke without bitterness, and in deep sorrow.

“I would thou wert at the confessional, poor Jacopo!” he said; “I am little able to give ease to such a burden.”

“Signore, I have lived too long shut out from the good wishes of my fellows, and I can bear with it no longer.  The accursed Senate may cut me off without warning, and then who will stop to look at my grave!  Signore, I must speak or die!”

“Thy case is piteous, Jacopo!  Thou hast need of ghostly counsel.”

“Here is no priest, Signore, and I carry a weight past bearing.  The only man who has shown interest in me, for three long and dreadful years, is gone!”

“But he will return, poor Jacopo.”

“Signore, he will never return.  He is with the fishes of the Lagunes.”

“By thy hand, monster!”

“By the justice of the illustrious Republic,” said the Bravo, with a smothered but bitter smile.

“Ha! they are then awake to the acts of thy class?  Thy repentance is the fruit of fear!”

Jacopo seemed choked.  He had evidently counted on the awakened sympathy of his companion, notwithstanding the difference in their situations, and to be thus thrown off again, unmanned him.  He shuddered, and every muscle and nerve appeared about to yield its power.  Touched by so unequivocal signs of suffering, Don Camillo kept close at his side, reluctant to enter more deeply into the feelings of one of his known character, and yet unable to desert a fellow-creature in so grievous agony.

“Signor Duca,” said the Bravo, with a pathos in his voice that went to the heart of his auditor, “leave me.  If they ask for a proscribed man, let them come here; in the morning they will find my body near the graves of the heretics.”

“Speak, I will hear thee.”

Jacopo looked up with doubt expressed on his features.

“Unburden thyself; I will listen, though thou recounted the assassination of my dearest friend.”

The oppressed Bravo gazed at him, as if he still distrusted his sincerity.  His face worked, and his look became still more wistful; but as Don Camillo faced the moon, and betrayed the extent of his sympathy, the other burst into tears.

“Jacopo, I will hear thee—­I will hear thee, poor Jacopo!” cried Don Camillo, shocked at this exhibition of distress in one so stern by nature.  A wave from the hand of the Bravo silenced him, and Jacopo, struggling with himself for a moment, spoke.