"You deserve to die!" said Peter.
"I want to die," Marie answered pitifully. She stood supporting herself with an arm that clung to the high straight back of a Florentine chair. "If you will only not tell Angelo till I am dead, that's all I'll ask. Please wait—a little while. I couldn't live and look him in the face if he knew, so I would have to kill myself before you told. I'm too unhappy to be afraid of dying—for my own sake. I've suffered such agonies of fear, nothing could be worse. But there's a reason why it would be wicked to die just now—of my own accord. There's a child coming—in a few months. Afterward, I'll swear to you to kill myself, and then you can tell Angelo everything. Won't you wait till then—only till the end of the summer? Mary would say yes, if she were here."
The one weapon by which she could defend herself against their justice, she had drawn, and stood weakly on guard, her strength spent.
Vanno and Peter looked at one another in silence, in the eyes of each the same question. "Is this the truth?"
Marie read their faces. "Angelo knows that there will be a baby," she whispered. "Indeed it's true. As soon as my child is born, I'm ready to die."
"No one wants you to die!" Peter said sharply.
"Except myself. I must die if you're going to tell. If you won't wait, it will have to be now, at any cost."
"You know that you force us to wait," Vanno answered. "Trust weak woman to conquer! We cannot wish for your death. But I'll find Mary and marry her, in spite of herself. As for my brother, never will I forgive him. And I hope that I may never see you or Angelo again. Let your own soul punish you, while you live."
"Are we to go?" asked Peter.
"Yes," Vanno said.