"I don't know."
"You see, you do love him," he cried in despair.
"Oh, God, oh, God!" she sobbed.
"Oh, I am a fool. Forgive me, forgive me. But I love you, and I lose my head. I love you, and I am desperate. And I need to know if you still love him. You will always love him? Is it so?"
"Till death," she said, with a strange look and accent.
"Say it again."
"Till death," she repeated, with the same strange intonation.
They were silent.
Luigi Caracciolo put his arm round her waist, and drew her slowly towards him.
Her eyes were fixed and void. She did not feel his arms about her. She did not feel his kisses. He kissed her hair, he kissed her sweet white throat, he kissed her little rosy ear. Anna was absorbed in a desperate meditation, far from all human things. He kissed her face, her eyes, her lips; she did not know it. But suddenly she felt his embrace become closer, stronger; she heard his voice change, it was no longer tender and caressing, it was fervid with tumultuous passion, it uttered confused delirious words. Silently, looking at him with burning eyes, she tried to disengage herself.