“They may hear you!” murmured Sebastião.
There was a pause. Jorge pressed his temples between his hands, strode up and down the study, making the floor tremble with his steps, then suddenly stopping before Sebastião in an attitude of supplication,—
“Tell me, at least, what she did. Did she go out? Did any one come to see her?”
Sebastião responded, with his gaze fixed upon the light,—
“Sometimes, in the beginning, her cousin came to see her, and when Donna Felicidade was sick she went to see her. Her cousin went away afterwards. I know nothing more.”
Jorge looked at Sebastião fixedly for a moment.
“But what did I ever do to her, Sebastião,—I who adored her? What did I ever do to her that she should treat me thus,—I who adored her?”
He broke into bitter weeping. Sebastião remained standing by the table, overwhelmed.
“It was a passing folly!” he murmured.
“And those allusions,” cried Jorge, turning around with sudden rage and shaking the paper violently,—“those meetings, those happy mornings spent together. She is a vile wretch!”