"No right? Ah, Bosio! Have I not the right to ask anything of you, after
all these years?"

"Anything--but not that! Your niece--under your roof! No--no--no! I
cannot, even if she would consent."

"Not even--" Matilda's splendid eyes, so cruelly close together,
fastened themselves upon the weak man's face, and she frowned.

"Not even if you thought it would be much better for her?" she asked
very slowly, completing the sentence.

Again he started and shrank from her.

"Just God!" he exclaimed under his breath. "That a woman should have
such thoughts!" Then he turned upon her with an instinctive revival of
manhood and honour. "You shall not hurt her!" he cried, as fiercely as
his voice could speak. "You shall not hurt a hair of her head, not even
to save yourself! I will warn her--I will have her protected--I will
tell everything! What is my life worth?"

"You would merely be told that you were mad, and we should have you
taken out to the asylum at Aversa--as mad as I am, or soon shall be, if
this goes on! You are mad to believe that I could do such things--I, a
woman! And yet, I know I say words that have no reason in them! And I
think crimes--horrible crimes, when I am alone--and I can tell no one
but you. Have pity on me, Bosio! I was not always what I am now--"

She spoke incoherently, and her steadiness broke down all at once, for
she had been living long under a fearful strain of terror and anxiety.