"No, thanks."
Whereupon she would close her eyes again, exhausted. Nothing more would be said by those round her, but Anna knew that they were there, silent, talking together by means of significant glances.
One day, Cesare Dias and Laura Acquaviva felt that they could mark a progress in Anna's convalescence, because two or three times she had looked at them with an expression of such earnest penitence, with such an eager prayer for pardon, in her sad dark eyes, that words were not necessary to tell what she felt. Soon afterwards she seemed to wish to be left alone with Dias, as if she had a secret to confide to him; but he cautiously thought it best to defer any private talk. However, one morning it so happened that he found himself alone in her room. He was reading a newspaper when a soft voice said:
"Listen."
Cesare Dias looked at her. Her black eyes were again beseeching forgiveness, and Anna stammered:
"What must you have thought—what must you have said of me!"
"You must not excite yourself, my dear," he said kindly.
"I was so wicked," she sobbed.
"Don't talk like that, dear Anna; you were guilty of nothing more than a girlish folly."