But Signorina Palmeri repeated what she had said. Don Ferrante should not marry the daughter of a convict. She sat pale and despairing, as if wishing to practise saying those terrible words. She said that she did not wish to enter a family which would despise her. She succeeded in saying it in a hard, cold voice, without emotion.
But the more she said, the greater became Don Matteo’s desire to help her. He felt as if he had met a queen who had been torn from her throne. A burning desire came over him to set the crown again upon her head, and fasten the mantle about her shoulders.
Therefore Don Matteo asked her if her father were not soon coming out of prison, and he wondered what he would live on.
The signorina answered that he would live on her work.
Don Matteo asked her very seriously whether she had thought how her father, who had always been rich, could bear poverty.
Then she was silent. She tried to move her lips to answer, but could not utter a sound.
Don Matteo talked and talked. She looked more and more frightened, but she did not yield.
At last he knew not what to do. How could he save her from that haunted house, from poverty, and from the burden of dishonor that weighed her down? But then his eyes chanced to fall on the little image of the Madonna over the bed. So the young signorina was a believer.
The spirit of inspiration came to Don Matteo. He felt that God had sent him to save this poor woman. When he spoke again, there was a new ring in his voice. He understood that it was not he alone who spoke.
“My daughter,” he said, and rose, “you will marry Don Ferrante for your father’s sake! It is the Madonna’s will, my daughter.”
There was something impressive in Don Matteo’s manner. No one had ever seen him so before. The signorina trembled, as if a spirit voice had spoken to her, and she clasped her hands.
“Be a good and faithful wife to Don Ferrante,” said Don Matteo, “and the Madonna promises you through me that your father will have an old age free of care.”
Then the signorina saw that it was an inspiration which guided Don Matteo. It was God speaking through him. And she sank down on her knees, and bent her head. “I shall do what you command,” she said.
But when the priest, Don Matteo, came out of the house of the little Moor and went up the street, he suddenly took out his breviary and began to read. And although the wet clothes struck him on the cheek, and the little children and the orange-peels lay in wait for him, he only looked in his book. He needed to hear the great words of God.
