"Well, uncle, I cannot tell you."
"Indeed!" cried Fra Angelo, with a frown. "I order you to tell me!"
"It is impossible, dear uncle, impossible," said Mila, hanging her head, crimson with shame, and with her eyes filled with tears; for it was very painful to her to see her excellent uncle angry with her for the first time in her life.
"Then you wish me to believe that you have been doing either an insane or a wicked thing!"
"Neither!" cried Mila, raising her head. "I call God to witness!"
"God!" repeated the monk, in a despairing tone. "How you pain me by speaking so, Mila! Can you be capable of swearing a false oath?"
"No, uncle, no, never!"
"Lie to your uncle, if it seems best to you, but do not lie to God!"
"Am I in the habit of lying, I ask you, then?" exclaimed the girl, proudly; "and ought I to be suspected by my uncle, the man who knows me so well, and for whose esteem I care more than for my life?"
"In that case, speak!" rejoined Fra Angelo, grasping her wrist in a way which he considered encouraging and paternal, but which bruised the child's arm and extorted a cry of terror from her.—"Why this fright, pray?" demanded the monk, in amazement. "Ah! you are guilty, girl. You have just done—not anything sinful, I cannot believe that—but some foolish thing or other, which is the first step on the pathway of evil. If it were not so, you would not recoil from me in terror; you would not have tried to hide your face when we met; above all things, you would not have tried to lie! And now, as it is impossible for you to have any innocent secret from me, you should not refuse to explain your actions."