“He cried out in son Gian’ Battista’s voice.”
The gun fell from his opened hand, but the arm remained extended for a moment as if still supported. Linda seized it roughly.
“You are too old to understand. Come into the house.”
He let her lead him. On the threshold he stumbled heavily, nearly coming to the ground together with his daughter. His excitement, his activity of the last few days, had been like the flare of a dying lamp. He caught at the back of his chair.
“In son Gian’ Battista’s voice,” he repeated in a severe tone. “I heard him—Ramirez—the miserable——”
Linda helped him into the chair, and, bending low, hissed into his ear—
“You have killed Gian’ Battista.”
The old man smiled under his thick moustache. Women had strange fancies.
“Where is the child?” he asked, surprised at the penetrating chilliness of the air and the unwonted dimness of the lamp by which he used to sit up half the night with the open Bible before him.
Linda hesitated a moment, then averted her eyes.