“Yes,” she said with candour.

“To tell you what in the name of Emilio Guasco?”

“To tell me that you no longer love me.”

“It is false, I swear!” exclaimed Marco Fiore, with vehemence.

“To suggest to me that I no longer love you.”

“Swear that it is false.”

“I swear it,” she replied, with a grave voice.

“And then? and then?”

“And then, as our love had been killed, it was necessary and right to re-enter the lawful, to re-enter the moral, to resume my place in society, to return esteemed, respected, honoured.”

“That is to say?”