"Exactly!" the uncle retorted with all the irony of which he was capable. "I cannot understand! But there is something else. You no longer go to church. I have never mentioned this to you because I have always made it a rule to let people do as they like, but when I see you losing your good sense, losing your common-sense even, the least I can do is to remind you that this is all you do by turning your back on the Almighty. And now this idea of not going to see your husband, under similar circumstances! It is past belief. Well, well," he said after a short pause, "I will go myself."
"You?" Luisa exclaimed.
"Why not? Yes, I. I had intended to accompany you, but if you will not go I must take the journey alone. I will go and tell your husband that you have lost your head, and that I hope I may soon be called to join poor Maria."
No one had ever heard such bitter words from Uncle Piero's lips. Perhaps it was for that reason, perhaps it was the authority of the man, perhaps it was Maria's name pronounced in that way, but at any rate Luisa was conquered.
"I will go," she said, "but you must stay here."
"Most certainly not!" cried Uncle Piero, greatly pleased. "It is forty years since I saw the islands. I must avail myself of this opportunity. And who knows but what I may enlist in the cavalry?"
"Well?" said Cia, when the uncle had gone to bed. "Does my master really intend to go? For the love of Heaven, don't let him, my dear!" And she told Luisa that two hours before he had rolled his eyes in a strange manner, letting his head sink upon his breast, and when she had called to him he had not answered. Presently he had recovered, and had been provoked at her anxious questions, protesting that he had not been ill, that he had simply felt rather sleepy. Luisa listened to her, standing with her candle in her hand, her eyes glassy, and her attention divided between the words she was hearing and another very different thought, a thought very far removed from Uncle Piero, from the house, from Valsolda.