“‘Him?’
“‘Franz Welkenstern—my cousin,’ she wailed.
“I suppose I stood before them like a stunned ox, for they repeated the name again and again, as if they were not sure of my having heard it.—Not hear it!” he cried suddenly, dropping into a chair and hiding his face in his hands. “Shall I ever on earth hear anything else again?”
He sat a long time with his face hidden and I waited. My head was like a great bronze bell with one thought for the clapper.
After a while he went on in a low deliberate voice, as though his words were balancing themselves on the brink of madness. With strange composure he repeated each detail of his brother’s charges: the meetings in the Countess Gemma’s drawing-room, the innocent friendliness of the two young people, the talk of mysterious visits to a villa outside the Porta Ticinese, the ever-widening circle of scandal that had spread about their names. At first, Andrea said, he and his wife had refused to listen to the reports which reached them. Then, when the talk became too loud, they had sent for Welkenstern, remonstrated with him, implored him to exchange into another regiment; but in vain. The young officer indignantly denied the reports and declared that to leave his post at such a moment would be desertion.
With a laborious accuracy Roberto went on, detailing one by one each incident of the hateful story, till suddenly he cried out, springing from his chair—“And now to leave her with this lie unburied!”
His cry was like the lifting of a grave-stone from my breast. “You must not leave her!” I exclaimed.
He shook his head. “I am pledged.”
“This is your first duty.”
“It would be any other man’s; not an Italian’s.”