"There was no illness?" Franco repeated.
"Come," his wife answered. "I will tell you everything."
She made him sit down on the dormeuse at the foot of their bed. He wished her to sit beside him, but she made a gesture of refusal, and of entreaty that he should not insist, that he should be quiet and wait; then, sinking down on the floor beside her baby, she began the painful story in a low, even voice, that sounded almost indifferent to the tragedy it was relating, a voice that resembled poor, deaf Barborin's, seeming to come from a far-away world. She began with her meeting with Peppina Bianconi at Campo, and—always in the same calm tone—told him all the thoughts, all the sentiments that had brought her to confront his grandmother, told him everything, down to the moment when she had realised that Maria was indeed dead. When she had finished she rose to her knees, and kissing her dead child, whispered to her: "Now your papa thinks that I killed you, but it is not true, dear, indeed, it is not true!"
He rose, quivering with nameless emotion, and bending over her, raised her—neither yielding nor resisting—from the floor. Touching her resolutely but tenderly, he placed her on the dormeuse beside him. He encircled her shoulders with his arm, pressing her to him, speaking with his lips on her hair, wetting it with the hot tears, which from time to time choked his voice. "My poor Luisa! No, indeed you did not kill her! How could you suspect me of thinking such a thing? I bless you instead for all that you have done for her ever since she came into the world; I, who have done nothing, bless you who have done so much. Never say such a thing again! Never, dear. Our Maria——"
A violent sob checked his words, but the man immediately exerted his strong will, controlled himself and continued:
"Don't you know what our Maria is saying now? She is saying: 'My darling mamma, my darling papa, now you are all alone, you have only each other, you are more closely united than ever; give me to God that He may give me back to you; that I may become your little guardian angel, and lead you to Him at last, that we may dwell together in all eternity,' Do you hear her saying these words, Luisa?"
She trembled in his arms, shaken by spasmodic quiverings; her face bent low, resisted Franco when he would have raised it. At last she took his hand and kissed it. Then he also kissed her on the hair, and murmured: "Answer me."
"You are good!" Luisa replied, in a faint and despairing voice. "You wish to spare me, but you do not believe what you say. You must feel that I caused her death, that if I had adopted your sentiments, your ideas, I should not have left the house, and if I had not left the house this would not have happened, and Maria would still be alive."
"Don't think of that, my dear, don't! You might have believed Maria was with Veronica; you might have remained in the room with the fiancés, and the accident would have happened just the same. Don't think of this any more, Luisa. Rather listen to what Maria is saying."
"Poor Franco! Poor, poor fellow!" said Luisa, with such bitterness of terrible hidden meanings, that his blood ran cold. He shuddered and was silent, unable to grasp her meaning, and at the same time dreading an explanation. Slowly they withdrew from each other's arms, Luisa being the first to move. She again took her husband's hand and wished to carry it to her lips, but Franco drew her hand tenderly towards him and made a last attempt.