"I committed a great fault," she said, in a dull voice, "but haven't you forgiven me, you and Laura?"
"Yes, yes. But husbands--but young men about to marry, don't pardon such faults. With what jealous care I have kept that secret! I have guarded it as if I were your father. And now you let a chance like this slip away! Not realising that such a chance may never come again! But another man, an equal of Caracciolo, where is he to be found?"
"It is true that I committed a great fault," she said, returning always to the same idea; "but my honour was untouched."
"Anna, Anna, you're a foolish child; that's what you are. You fall in love with a penniless nobody, you escape from your home, you risk your honour, and you are saved by a miracle. Afterwards, you are ill, you get well, you forget the young beggar; and then when a fine fellow like Caracciolo falls in love with you, you refuse him. You're mad, Anna. Marry Luigi Caracciolo. I beg you to marry him."
"But why not? It's not a sufficient reason to say that you don't love him."
"Look for another reason, then," she said.
Cesare Dias had spoken these words in a threatening tone, unusual to him. He rarely lost his temper.
After a long pause he asked, smiling sarcastically, "You are in love with some one else, I suppose?"
Anna did not answer. She wrung her hands and hid her eyes.
"Why don't you answer? You've fallen in love again, have you not?"
"Again? What do you mean?" she exclaimed.
"I mean that to explain your refusal of Luigi Caracciolo, you must be in love with some other man. You little girls believe that passion is everlasting. You believe in faithfulness that lasts, if not beyond the grave, at least up to its brink. Are you still in love with Giustino Morelli?"
"Oh, don't insult me like that," she cried, in a convulsion of sobs.
"Calm yourself," said he, studying her with cold curiosity, while she wept.
"For pity's sake, don't think that of me," she besought him; "Say anything that I deserve, but not that, not that."
"Calm yourself," repeated Dias. "We will speak of this another day."
"Listen, listen," she cried. "Don't go away yet. Forgive me, first, for having interfered with one of your plans. But marry Luigi Caracciolo--I can't, indeed I can't. I never can. You smile at my word _never_. You are right, the human heart is such a fickle thing. Forgive me. But you will see that I am not wrong. You will never never have any more trouble with me. I will be so obedient, so meek. I will do everything you wish. Compared to you I am such a little, poor, worthless thing."