Maria shook her head and pursed up her lips; but Aunt Varvara heaved all over and raised her eyes as if to find the little country church high up—high up against the soft blue of the moonlit sky.
"Except for you and your friends," said the landlady, "and the church and devotees of the Most Holy Madonna, I'd see all Sardinia burnt up sooner than go back there."
"But why?"
Aunt Varvara busy with her cooking shut her eyes, unable to protest out loud against her mistress's shocking hatred of the distant fatherland.
"Ah, my sweetheart," said the old woman when Signora Obinu had gone to the dining-room, "she has good reason! They murdered her there!"
"But she's alive still, Aunt Varvara!"
"You don't know what you're talking about! It's better to murder a woman than to betray her."
This threw him back into his doubts again.
"Aunt Varvara, you said it was a Signore who seduced her. Tell me his name. Try to remember it. Tell me, has the Signora any documents? Where would they be? I might help her to find the man; might persuade him to——It would be to your own interest as well."
"Persuade him to what?"