A feeling of intense pity rose in the old fisherman's heart. In the days of his most grinding poverty he had never been reduced to tears, and to think of the rich, proud Martina Dejas being actually more wretched than an old pauper like himself!
"I will do my very best," he said. "Now go, and try not to worry. You had better get off at once, though; it is time for him to be coming back." She got up, wrapped the petticoat carefully around her head and shoulders, and when Isidoro had looked out to make sure that no one was about who might recognise her, walked slowly away.
The air was sharp; the wind was blowing in gusts, tearing the first dead leaves from the trees. Aunt Martina, struggling against it, felt more anxious and depressed even than when she came. It seemed as though that chill, autumn wind that shook and lashed and tore her, were tearing and lashing her spirit as well. The presentiments of evil that she had spoken of as haunting her, were stronger than ever. Passing a certain wretched little hovel, more forlorn and poverty-stricken than any of the others, she shot a keen glance at it, and then quickly lowered her eyes, as though in dread lest some invisible being should read the dark thought of her soul. The owner of this hovel, a poor peasant, had come to her some time before, and had asked her to lend him some money. "Lend it to you!" she had exclaimed derisively. "And how do you propose to repay it?" "If I can't pay you back in money," the man had replied, "there may be some other way of showing my gratitude. You could require any service at all of me."
She understood what he meant. He was ready to undertake anything, even the commission of a crime, in order to get the money he needed. But she had not wanted anything, and so had sent him off. Now, passing the forlorn little house, rapidly falling into ruins, through the darkness and wind, and melancholy of the night, she saw again before her the gaunt, resolute figure of this man; his hollow, sunken eyes; his lips, white from hunger; his dark, bony hands, ready for any act by which he might hope to snatch a little ease and comfort out of life; and the horrible schemes of vengeance that were tearing at her selfish old heart began to take a fearful and well-defined shape.
Thus she passed on. A dark, forbidding form, enveloped in her black tunic, swept by the wind past that wretched hovel like a shadowy portent of evil.
That same evening Uncle Isidoro reasoned with Costantino at length, urging him by every argument at his command to avert what otherwise must inevitably result in a catastrophe for himself, for Giovanna, and for every one concerned.
Costantino regarded the old man steadily with his usual melancholy smile. "What," he demanded, "could happen? You admit yourself that the old harpy will never talk to her son. And—isn't she my wife, Giovanna? Haven't I a perfect right to be with her whenever I choose?"
"Ah, child of the Lord," sighed Uncle Isidoro, clasping his hands and shaking his head, "you will be made to suffer for it in some way; you had better look out: Martina Dejas is capable of anything where her son is concerned."
A look of hatred came into Costantino's eyes.
"Listen," he said; "my heart is like a vessel full of deadly poison; a single drop more and it will overflow. Let them look out who have brought all this on themselves." Then he got up and went out into the night. For hours he wandered aimlessly about, like one who had lost his way, in the wind-swept solitude. Then, about midnight, he found himself, almost without knowing how he got there, as on that first evening, beneath Giovanna's window. He climbed on the shed and tapped.