She inclined her head as she said this, I suppose by way of indication that the Herr might accept his dismissal; and laid the letter on an ebony console beside her sofa. But the old German kept his ground.
"Signora," he said, tremulously, and my blossoms thrilled through all their delicate fibres with the indignant beating of his heart; "do you know that letter comes from your sister? That she is poor, in want, widowed, and almost dying?"
Carlotta Nero lifted her pencilled eyebrows.
"Indeed?" she said. "I am pained to hear it. Still I cannot do anything for her. You may tell her so."
"Signora, I beg you to consider. Will you suffer the—the fault of ten years ago to bear weight upon your sisterly kindness,—your human compassion and sympathy, now?"
"Excuse me, Herr Ritter, I think you are talking romance. I have no sisterly kindness, no compassion, no sympathy, for any one of— of this description."
She motioned impatiently towards the letter on the console; and
I thought she spoke the truth.
Her Ritter was speechless.
"Dolores chose her own path," said the innkeeper's wife, seeing that her visitor still waited for something more, "and she has no right to appeal to me now. She disgraced herself deliberately, and she must take the consequences of her own act. I will not move a finger to help her out of a condition into which she wilfully degraded herself, in spite of my most stringent remonstrances. All imprudence brings its own punishment,—and she must bear hers as other foolish people have to do. She is not the only widow in the world, and she might be worse off than she is; a great deal."
"I am to tell her this"—asked Herr Ritter, recovering himself with a prodigious effort "from you?"