“Who told you so?”

“He did! he never lacks frankness, I will say that for him.  Well, you have destroyed my chances of securing a peaceful life.  And yet I never did you any harm, did I?”

“I destroy you?” repeated he, as she began to weep after a vain attempt to hide her eyes in her tresses.

“How is that?”

“Because I lost control of myself under his anger and his threats, and I confessed to him also that I was fond of you.  We have a fellow feeling and selected the same confidant!”

“You love me?”

“For what else did I come back to this gloomy house?  What else would have induced me to stay?  He drove me away before, and I never suspected that it was to clear the scene for Rebecca, fool—­child that I was!  And now he picked the quarrel with me about you in order to go off with the heathen!  You men are so monopolizing!  He wants to be let love the inky-eyed Jewess, but I must not say a kind word to you!  Oh, what am I to do now?” and in pretending to repair the disarray of her hair, down came a luxuriant tress.  “What does it matter which way I turn?  All roads lead to the river or the railroad—­a step into the cold water or repose on the track of the iron horse, and no one will then torment poor Cesarine!”

“You have some sinister plan,” said Antonino, frightened by her manner.  “I will not let you go away alone.”

“Is it thus you guard your master’s house?”

“Then wait till he returns and decide upon something.”

“He will decide on separating us, that is sure.  Do you think if he takes me, that you could go with us?”

“No! but if you meant to kill yourself, I should die after you.”

“Why not die together?”

“I do not care.”

“Then you love me thoroughly?” she exclaimed in delight.

“Death would be repose, and this struggle is driving me frantic,” said he, in a deep voice.

“Well, we will die some day,” she said with pretended fervor, “but we are young and have time before us.  Lovers do not willingly die!  If you love me as I love you, you would, like me, find life all of a sudden wondrously bright!  What a blessing that I have money for our enjoyment!” clapping her hands like a child.

“In your fair Italy, we—­”

“Money,” repeated he, raised by her magic into a region above such sordid ideas and falling quickly.

“Of course! my bank orders! stay, they are in your box.  Let us hasten away before he returns.  Quick, take!”

“No;” said Antonino.  “When he left the house in my charge he bade me touch nothing, and let nothing be touched until his return.”

“He forsaw!” muttered the faithless wife, gnawing one of the tresses furiously as she studied the Italian’s emotion.  “Get me my money!”

“Wait until—­”

“And with it those papers that describe your discoveries.”

“What do you mean?” he cried, coming to a halt, half-way toward the chest while she was undoing one of the windows of which she had drawn back the curtains.  “The papers—­they are not mine, or yours.”