“Your life!”
“My life.”
“You know well, that, when you have frankly confided in me, I have never——”
“Yes, forsooth, as when——”
Perpetua was sensible she had touched a false string; wherefore, changing suddenly her note, “My dear master,” said she, in a moving tone of voice, “I have always had a dutiful regard for you, and if I now wish to know this affair, it is from zeal, and a desire to assist you, to give you advice, to relieve your mind.”
The truth is, that Don Abbondio’s desire to disburden himself of his painful secret was as great as that of Perpetua to obtain a knowledge of it; so that, after having repulsed, more and more feebly, her renewed assaults; after having made her swear many times that she would not breathe a syllable of it, he, with frequent pauses and exclamations, related his miserable adventure. When it was necessary to pronounce the dread name of him from whom the prohibition came, he required from Perpetua another and more solemn oath: having uttered it, he threw himself back on his seat with a heavy sigh, and, in a tone of command, as well as supplication, exclaimed,—
“For the love of Heaven!”—
“Mercy upon me!” cried Perpetua, “what a wretch! what a tyrant! Does he not fear God?”
“Will you be silent? or do you want to ruin me completely?”
“Oh! we are here alone, no one can hear us. But what will my poor master do?”