‘Infamous!’ she cried, at length, in a choking voice. ‘But say you are trifling with me, Afer, and this is the crown of your jest.’
‘I am not so mad,’ he replied, dwelling with complete satisfaction on the effect of his communication.
‘From whom, then, in the villa, has such a slander sprung?’
‘That I cannot say.’
‘I must know.’
‘Drowning were too good for him.’
‘Him!’
‘Him,’ repeated the knight, with a nod. ‘There are no women in the villa who could possibly be the author of such a story. It is certain to be a man. Have you no suspicion?’
He could hear the grate of her teeth as she breathed heavily and rapidly through her nostrils.
‘Suspicion!’ she cried, after some inarticulate sounds. ‘How am I to know? A lie—it is for any one—what is easier? A scullion—Caesar—any one can make a lie! It is another matter to discover it—the coward!’