"Not only I, but you too. For the sake of the world's opinion, as well as for our own sakes, we can't desert the girl. She's been confided to our protection. It would be a scandal which I'll not permit you to make. If I have to suffer a hundred deaths, I'll not allow you to make a scandal. Do you understand!"
She looked at him, changing colour, feeling that her last hope was escaping her.
"And then," he went on, "I don't know your reasons for not wishing to live any longer with your sister. She's good, she's well-behaved, she's serious; she gives you no trouble; you have no right to find fault with her. It's one of your whims—it's your everlasting desire to be unhappy. Anyhow, your idiotic caprice will soon enough be gratified. Laura will soon be married."
"Do you wish Laura to marry!"
"I wish it earnestly."
"You'll be glad of it!"
"Most glad," he answered, smiling.
Ah, in the days of her womanly innocence, before her mind had been opened to the atrocious revelations of their treason, she would not have understood the import of that answer and that smile; but she knew now the whole depth of human wickedness. He smiled, and curled his handsome black moustaches. Anna lost her head.
"Then you are more infamous than Laura," she cried.
"The vocabulary of Othello," he cried, calmly. "But, you know, it has been proved that Othello was epileptic."