He let go her hands. She fell back exhausted, but replied in a clear, precise voice—
“I do not love him.”
“It is false, it is false; you still love him.”
“If we had still loved each other we should not have left each other,” she declared without hesitation.
“When you returned to this house to laugh at me, to make a fool of your tortured husband, you were in love with Marco Fiore, and Marco Fiore was in love with you.”
“I should not have placed a foot in your house, understand, if I had still loved Marco,” she proclaimed, proudly and coldly.
“Cursed be that evening! Cursed be that hour!” the man exclaimed, mad with jealousy and suffering.
“You called me here,” she stated.
“If not, wouldn’t you have come? Wouldn’t you have come, eh, woman without soul or heart?”
“I should never have come,” she declared.