“It shall not be allowed for a miserable woman, yes, for a miserable woman, without honour and without heart, to make a poor gentleman unhappy and ridiculous. An honourable man should not allow her.”
“Are you speaking of me?” she asked, getting up at once proud and erect before him, and forcing him to stop his mad perambulations.
“Exactly; I am speaking of you, dishonour of my life, misfortune of my life!” Emilio cried in her face.
She bent a little under the new injury, but still gathered all her strength not to retaliate or rebel, to dominate her pride, and to use only her goodness and her tenderness.
“Emilio, Emilio, you are raving!” she exclaimed, with immense sadness.
Again he burst into a harsh laugh, false and stridulous.
“So I am a madman, am I? And what are you, Maria? You who lost your head for three years for that waxen-faced doll, for that languishing idiot, for that perverse and mischievous-souled Marco Fiore? Oh yes, call me mad--you, you, who had neither shame nor honour for three years? You who are a spectacle for the laughter and contempt of the whole of Rome for your madness; and dare you tell me that I am raving?”
“Oh, Emilio, Emilio!” she exclaimed, trembling.
“Do you deny it? Do you deny it?” he yelled, almost stammering, so great was his fury.
She looked at her husband. The great danger she was in only made her a little paler and her lips a little drier. She kept silent.
“Haven’t you loved him?” he yelled, coming nearer to her, taking her two hands and squeezing them as in a vice.
She closed her eyes, as if face to face with death. Then she opened them wide, and replied simply--
“Didn’t you run away from home for him, with him?”
She tried to free her hands, which were closed in his, but he did not let go. Again with simplicity, with loyalty, she had the courage to reply to the furious man--
“There! there! Didn’t you adore him for three years?”
She tightened her lips, and bit them to conquer the pain of her tortured hands, and without a cry still replied--
“And you still love him; you’ll always love him!” he cried, and in his anger this time there was mixed deep suffering.
He let go her hands. She fell back exhausted, but replied in a clear, precise voice--
“It is false, it is false; you still love him.”