The Sicilian interrupted her. His face was marble white, but his eyes were afire.
"His father! Spare me the pedigree! I know it! Margharita, stand there, where the moonlight touches your face. Let me look at you. Is it you, a daughter of the Marionis, who can speak so calmly of bringing this disgrace upon our name? You, my little sister Margharita, the proud-spirited girl who used to share in my ambitions, and to whom our name was as dear as to myself?"
"Leonardo, spare me!"
"Spare you? Yes, when you have told me that this is some nightmare, some phantasm—a lie! Spare you! Yes, when you tell me that this presumptuous upstart has gone back to his upstart country."
She dropped her hands from before her face, and stood before him, pale and desperate.
"Leonardo, I cannot give him up, I love him!"
"And do you owe me no love? Do you owe no duty to the grandeur of our race? Noblesse oblige, Margharita! We bear a great name, and with the honor which it brings, it brings also responsibilities. I do not believe that you can truly love this man; but if you do, your duty is still plain. You must crush your love as you would a poisonous weed under your feet. You must sacrifice yourself for the honor of our name."
"Leonardo, you do not understand. I love him, and cannot give him up. My word is given; I cannot break it."
He drew a step further away from her, and his voice became harder.
"You must choose, then, between him and me; between your honor and your unworthy lover. There is no other course. As my sister, you are the dearest thing on earth to me; as that man's wife, you will be an utter stranger. I will never willingly look upon your face, nor hear you speak. I will write your name out of my heart, and my curse shall follow you over the seas to your new home, and ring in your ears by day and by night. I will never forgive; I swear it!"