'Why were you so frightened?' he asked, after a long silence.
'I don't know; it is stronger than I am.'
'When one is in the Lord's grace there is no need for fear,' he remarked sententiously and severely. 'Have you some mortal sin on your conscience?'
'No ... I don't think so, at least,' she said, hesitating.
They kept silence. The Marquis di Formosa looked into the shadows.
'Has the spirit come?' he asked afterwards, in a whispered, mysterious tone.
'Oh, do not speak of that,' she said, sighing again, shutting her eyes, and hiding her face in her hands.
'Has it come?' he insisted; a gambler's cruelty was raging in him now.
'For mercy's sake, if you love me, don't speak of that!' she said, taking his hand and kissing it, so as to move him more.
'Tell me, has it come?' he again repeated implacably.