"My pleasure!" the marchesa catches up and echoes the words with a horrible jeer. (She had been collecting her forces for attack; she had lashed herself into a transport of fury. Her smooth, snake-like head was reared erect; her upright figure, too thin to be majestic, stiffened. Thunder and lightning were in her eyes as she turned them on Enrica.) "You dare to ask me my pleasure! You shall hear it, lost, miserable girl! Leave this house—go to your lover! Let it be the motto of his low-born race that a Nobili dishonored a Guinigi. Go—I wish you were dead!" and she points with her finger toward the door.
Every word that fell from the marchesa sounded like a curse. As she speaks, the smiles fade out of Enrica's face as the lurid sunlight fades before the rising tempest. She grasps a chair for support. Her bosom heaves under the folds of her thin white dress. Her eyes, which had fixed themselves on her aunt, fall with an agonized expression on the floor. Thus she stands, speechless, motionless, passive; stunned, as it were, by the shock of the words.
Then a low cry of pain escapes her, a cry like the complaint of a dumb animal—the bleat of a lamb under the butcher's knife.
"Have I not reared you as my own child?" cries the marchesa—too excited to remain silent in the presence of her victim. "Have you ever left my side? Yet under my ancestral roof you have dared to degrade yourself. Out upon you!—Go, go—or with my own hand I shall drive you into the street!"
She starts up, and is rushing upon Enrica, who stands motionless before her, when Trenta steps forward, puts his hand firmly on the marchesa's arm, and draws her back.
"You have called Enrica here," he whispers, "to question her. Do so—do so. Look, she is so overcome she cannot speak," and he points to Enrica, who is now trembling like an aspen-leaf, her fair head bowed upon her bosom, the big tears trickling down her white cheeks.
When the marchesa, checked by Trenta, has ceased speaking, Enrica raises her heavy eyelids and turns her eyes, swimming in tears, upon her aunt. Then she clasps her hands—the small fingers knitting themselves together with a grasp of agony—and wrings them. Her lips move, but no sound comes from them. Something there is so pitiful in this mute appeal—she looks so slight and frail in the background of the fading sunlight—there is such a depth of unspoken pathos in every line of her young face—that the marchesa pauses; she pauses ere putting into execution her resolve of turning Enrica herself, with her own hands, from the palace.
A new sentiment has also within the last few minutes arisen within her—a sentiment of curiosity. The marchesa is a woman; in many respects a thorough woman. The first flash of fury once passed, she feels an intense longing to know how all this had come about. What had passed? How had Enrica met Nobili? Whether any of her household had betrayed her? On whom her just vengeance shall fall?
Each moment that passes as the quick thoughts rattle through her brain, it seems to her more and more imperative that she should inform herself what had really happened under her roof!
At this moment Enrica speaks in a low voice.