"Suffering? Sorrow?" again asked the cold voice of the Englishwoman.
"I suffer like one of the damned, Miss Ford," he added gloomily.
"Ah!" she exclaimed, with colourless intonation.
"And Lilian also suffers! Isn't it true that she suffers?"
"Yes, I believe she suffers," exclaimed Miss Ford, glacially.
By now she had made a pile of the fourteen sealed letters, and raising her head she said to Lucio Sabini:
"Must I take back all these letters, then, to my friend, so that she may see and understand, Signor Sabini? Give me the last as well and I will go."
And she made as if to rise and depart with her pile of letters, without further remark.
"Then Lilian is here?" cried Lucio Sabini, drawing near to the English lady, again convulsed. "She is here. Tell me that she is here."