“For your sake,” repeated Bosio, dreamily.  “For your sake?  But you ask the impossible, Matilde.  Besides, she would not marry me.  She would laugh at the idea.  And then—­for you and me—­it is horrible!  You have no right to ask it.”

“No right?  Ah, Bosio!  Have I not the right to ask anything of you, after all these years?”

“Anything—­but not that!  Your niece—­under your roof!  No—­no—­no!  I cannot, even if she would consent.”

“Not even—­” Matilda’s splendid eyes, so cruelly close together, fastened themselves upon the weak man’s face, and she frowned.

“Not even if you thought it would be much better for her?” she asked very slowly, completing the sentence.

Again he started and shrank from her.

“Just God!” he exclaimed under his breath.  “That a woman should have such thoughts!” Then he turned upon her with an instinctive revival of manhood and honour.  “You shall not hurt her!” he cried, as fiercely as his voice could speak.  “You shall not hurt a hair of her head, not even to save yourself!  I will warn her—­I will have her protected—­I will tell everything!  What is my life worth?”

“You would merely be told that you were mad, and we should have you taken out to the asylum at Aversa—­as mad as I am, or soon shall be, if this goes on!  You are mad to believe that I could do such things—­I, a woman!  And yet, I know I say words that have no reason in them!  And I think crimes—­horrible crimes, when I am alone—­and I can tell no one but you.  Have pity on me, Bosio!  I was not always what I am now—­”

She spoke incoherently, and her steadiness broke down all at once, for she had been living long under a fearful strain of terror and anxiety.  The consciousness that she could say with safety whatever came first to her lips helped to weaken her.  She half expected that Bosio would rise, and come to her and comfort her, perhaps, as she hid her face in her hands, shivering in fear of herself and shaking a little with the convulsive sob that was so near.

But Bosio did not move from his seat.  He sat quite still, staring at the fire.  He was not a physical coward, but, morally speaking, he was terrified and stunned by what he had understood her to say.  Probably no man of any great strength of character, however bad, could have lived the life he had led in that house for many years, dominated by such a woman as Matilde Macomer.  And now his weakness showed itself, to himself and to her, in what he felt, and in what he did, respectively.  A strong man, having once felt that revival of manly instinct, would have turned upon her and terrified her and mastered her; and, within himself, his heart might have broken because he had ever loved such a woman.  But Bosio sat still in his seat and said nothing more, though his brow was moist with a creeping, painful, trembling emotion that twisted his heart and tore his delicate nerves.  He felt that his hands were very cold, but that he could not speak.  She dominated him still, and he was ashamed of the weakness, and of his own desire to go and comfort her and forget the things she had said.