These are womanly fears,' said he disdainfully. 'Who ever died through a communication from on high? The meeting of soul and spirit is a spring of life. Bianca Maria, don't be ungrateful, don't be cruel; tell me all.'
'You are trying to kill me,' she repeated, desperately and resignedly.
'You are a fool! Do you wish me, your father, to pray to you? Well, I will; there is nothing else to be done. Children are ungrateful and wicked; they give back cruelty for our love. I pray to you, Bianca, I beg of you, as if you were my patron saint, to tell me all.'
'I will die of this, father,' she murmured, her voice choked in the pillows that helped her to curb her crying and sobs.
'Listen, Bianca,' he went on coldly, keeping in his anger; 'you must believe me. I am a man, I am sane, I am in my senses, I can reason. Well, it is an article of faith with me, as clear as the light, as the sun, that you have had to-night, or will have, a spirit's apparition. It will come to bless our family; it will tell you words of happiness. If it has come, so much the better; your duty as an obedient, loving daughter of the House of Cavalcanti is to tell me all, at once.'
'I know nothing,' she said dryly.
'Do you swear it?'
'I swear that I know nothing.'
'Then this vision will come in the succeeding hours of the night. I am going into the chapel, to pray. I am a sinner, but sinners, too, can ask for grace. I will pray that you may see and feel the spirit.'
'No, don't go away!' she cried out, getting up in her bed and catching hold of his arm with a despairing clutch.