"I committed a great fault," she said, in a dull voice, "but haven't you forgiven me, you and Laura?"
"Yes, yes. But husbands—but young men about to marry, don't pardon such faults. With what jealous care I have kept that secret! I have guarded it as if I were your father. And now you let a chance like this slip away! Not realising that such a chance may never come again! But another man, an equal of Caracciolo, where is he to be found?"
"It is true that I committed a great fault," she said, returning always to the same idea; "but my honour was untouched."
"I am the only person who knows that."
"It is enough for me that you know it."
"Anna, Anna, you're a foolish child; that's what you are. You fall in love with a penniless nobody, you escape from your home, you risk your honour, and you are saved by a miracle. Afterwards, you are ill, you get well, you forget the young beggar; and then when a fine fellow like Caracciolo falls in love with you, you refuse him. You're mad, Anna. Marry Luigi Caracciolo. I beg you to marry him."
"You can't ask me that," she murmured.
"Love is a fancy. Marry Caracciolo."
"I can't."