“It comes from having suffered much,” replied Luigia; “suffering is a great teacher.”

“Suffered?  Yes, I know you did, in Italy.  But I have liked to feel that after your arrival in France—­”

“Always; I have always suffered,” she said in a voice of emotion.  “I was not born under a happy star.”

“That ‘always’ seems like a reproach to me,” said Sallenauve, “and yet I do not know what wrong I can have done you.”

“You have done me no wrong; the harm was there!” she cried, striking her breast,—­“within me!”

“Probably some foolish fancy, such as that of leaving my house suddenly, because your mistaken sense of honor made you think yourself in my way.”

“Not mistaken,” she replied.  “I know what was in your thoughts.  If only on account of what you had done for me, I knew I could never aspire to your esteem.”

“But, my dear Luigia, I call such ideas absurd.  Have I ever shown you any want of consideration?  How could I?  Your conduct has always been exemplary.”

“Yes, I tried to do everything that would give you a good opinion of me; but I was none the less the widow of Benedetto.”

“What! can you suppose that that misfortune, the result of a just vengeance—­”

“Ah! no, it is not the death of that man that lowered me in your eyes; on the contrary.  But I had been the wife of a buffoon, of a police-spy, of a base man, ready to sell me to any one who would give him money.”

“As long as that situation lasted, I thought you deeply to be pitied; but despised, never!”

“And,” continued the Italian, more excitedly, “we had lived two years under the same roof, you and I alone.”

“Yes, and I found my comfort in it.”

“Did you think me ugly?”

“You know better than that, for I made my finest statue from you.”

“Foolish?”

“No one was ever foolish who could act such a part as you did to-night.”

“Then you must see that you despised me.”

Sallenauve seemed wholly surprised by this deduction; he thought himself very clever in replying,—­

“It seems to me that if I had behaved to you in any other manner you would have the right to say that I despised you.”

But he had to do with a woman who in everything, in her friendships, her hatreds, her actions, as in her words, went straight to her point.  As if she feared not to be fully understood, she went on:—­

“To-day, monsieur, I can tell you all, for I speak of the past; the future has opened before me, as you see.  From the day you were good to me and by your generous protection I escaped an infamous outrage, my heart has been wholly yours.”

Sallenauve, who had never suspected that feeling, and, above all, was unable to understand how so artlessly crude an avowal of it could be made, knew not what to answer.