"Let us leave all this to heaven;" said the old man. "What happened and was notorious to the whole city and country, was quite horrible enough, without involving others, who may perhaps have been innocent, in this enormous wickedness. However, let the matter with regard to the Marconis stand as it may, I am perfectly resolved that they shall never be the better off for my fortune. By the help of my patrons here I shall obtain leave to make over my property to some convents or charitable foundations; and perhaps my weariness of life may lead me to end my own days as a monk or hermit."
"But what," threw in the mother weeping, "if it were possible after all to find out that second Crescentia again, of whom Antonio has told us! The child was stolen from me during your absence in a most incomprehensible manner; the witch who named the Marconis on that night, the likeness, all, all agrees so wonderfully, that surely we ought not to cast away hope, that first and chief good of life, too early, not too hastily, in our despair."
"Good Eudoxia," said the father, "have done, have done with all these dreams and stories and wild fancies: for us there remains in this world nothing that is certain, except death; and that ours may be pious and easy, is what we must wish and pray to heaven for."
"And if hereafter, when it is already too late," exclaimed the mother, "our poor orphan child should be found again, may not the unhappy girl justly reproach us for not relying on the bounty and mercy of Heaven, and waiting for her return with a little more calmness and patience?"
Ambrosio cast a dark frown on the youth, and then said: "This too has come in over and above all the rest to deepen our wretchedness: you have infected my poor wife with your sick fancies, and have thereby robbed her of her peace, the only, the last blessing of life."
"What mean you by these words?" askt Antonio.
"Young man," answered the father, "ever since that ride of yours through field and forest, when you pinned that wild tale upon me about the events which you said had befallen you the night before…."
"Signor Ambrosio!" cried Antonio, and his hand fell involuntarily on his sword.
"Leave that alone," continued the old man calmly: "far be from me the wish to accuse you of a falsehood; I have too long known your noble character, and your love for truth. But has it never struck you, my poor young friend, without my putting it into your head, that ever since the night when you met my daughter's coffin, having come with the thought to carry her home with you the next day as your bride, your senses have got into disorder, your reason has been much weakened? During that lonely night, beneath that storm, in the strongly excited state of your passions, you fancied you saw my lost child again; and the recollections of your unfortunate father, of your long-lost mother, connected themselves with her image. In this way were those visions bred, and fixt themselves firmly in your brain. Did we find a single trace of the hut? Was a human creature in the neighbourhood able to tell us a word about the robbers you killed? That awful meeting again with my real daughter, in which I perforce must believe, is of itself enough to fever the very coldest feelings into madness; and need one marvel then at your talking of having encountered another impossibility, at your story about finding the dead Pietro come to life among the mountains, and not knowing him again, and about those almost farcical tricks of jugglery that were played you, all which you have related to us with the very same assurance? No, my good Antonio, pain and grief have distracted your sounder senses, so that you see and believe in things which have no real existence."
Antonio was perplext and knew not what to reply. Greatly as the loss of his beloved had shaken all the faculties of his soul, he still was too clearly conscious of the events he had past through, to bring their reality thus in question.