"No. The Professor was to destroy it, by my orders."
A long silence followed. Very slowly Luisa withdrew her head and rested it on her own pillow. Suddenly Franco exclaimed, aloud: "A law-suit indeed! With those documents! With those insults! To the mother of my father! And all for money!"
"Don't keep repeating that," his wife exclaimed indignantly. "Why do you keep repeating that? Don't you know very well it is not true?"
Both spoke excitedly. It was plain that during the preceding silence their thoughts had been hard at work on this point. The reproof irritated him, and he replied blindly—
"I know nothing about it!"
"Oh, Franco!" cried Luisa, much hurt. He already regretted the affront, and begged her to forgive him, accusing his hot temper, which made him say things he did not mean, and he entreated her to speak a kind word to him. "Yes, yes," Luisa answered with a sigh, but he was not satisfied, and wished her to embrace him and say, "I forgive you." The touch of the dear lips did not refresh him as usual. Some minutes passed, and then he strained his ear to hear if his wife had fallen asleep. He heard the wind, Maria's quiet breathing, the noise of the waves, the jarring of a window, but that was all. "Have you really forgiven me?" he whispered, and he heard her soft answer: "Yes, dear." Presently she, in her turn, listened, and besides the wind, the waves, the creaking of a shutter, the even, regular breathing of the child, she heard the even, regular breathing of her husband. Then she once more sighed deeply, sighed despairingly. Oh, God! How could Franco have acted thus? What wounded her heart most sorely was the fact that he did not seem to sense the injuries which her poor mother and Uncle Piero had suffered. But she would not allow herself to dwell on this thought, at least not until she had considered his other mistake, his mistaken idea of justice. And here she felt bitterly, but not without a certain satisfaction, that he was her inferior, that he was controlled by sentiments that were the outcome of his fancy, while her own sentiment was inspired by reason. Franco had in him so much of the child. He had, even now, been able to go to sleep, while she was sure of not closing her eyes all night long. She believed she was without imagination because she did not feel it move, because in her it was less easily inflamed. She would have laughed had she been told that imagination was more powerful in her than in her husband. But indeed such was the case. Only, in order to demonstrate this, both souls must be turned upside down, for Franco's imagination was visible on the surface of his soul, and all his reason was at the bottom, while in Luisa's soul imagination was at the bottom, and reason was plainly visible on the surface. In fact, she did not sleep, but all night long she thought, with that imagination that lay at the bottom of her soul, how religion favours weak sentimentality, how incapable it is, even while preaching the thirst for justice, of forming a correct sense of justice in those intellects which are devoted to it.
The Professor also, who was subject to serious infiltrations of imagination into the ratiocinative cells of his brain, as well as into the amorous cells of his heart, having put out the light, spent the greater part of the night in front of the fireplace, working with the tongs and with his imagination, taking up, examining and then dropping embers and projects, until only one glowing coal and one last idea remained. Then he took a match, and having held it in contact with the ember, lighted the lamp once more, seized the idea, which was also hot and luminous, and carried it off to bed with him.
This was the idea. He would start secretly for Brescia, present himself before the Marchesa with the terrible document, and obtain a capitulation.